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THE "CAR-HOOK" TRAGEDY, 



fe« TriaL asd Esecstioa 



OF 




PHILADELrHIA : 
BARCLAY & CO., PUBLISHERS. 



THE "CAR-HOOK" TRAGEDY. 



TH1 
3 

AJSTD 




©HIE® 



UBBER OF AHH E PUTNA1 



GOVERNOR DIX'S LETTERS. 

Neither tears, appeals for executive clemency from the wife of the murdered 
opinions on this interesting case from profound judges, learned lawyers^ 
eminent ministers, and the press, nor political influence* 
backed by a mine of wealth, could save Foster. 



THIS WOEK IS WRITTKH AND COflEPEU*® 



ar w j^j u w 



Attorney at Law, 



j-*****^**/**. 



085(IB91©©(I© &W® ©ITCfld® g!»<g^&WfH&M£ 



w< 



<3 

PHILADELPHIA: ^ 

BARCLAY & CO. PUBLISHERS 

23 K. Seventh Streets. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873. by 
BARCLAY & CO., 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. 0. 



LIFE, TRIAL, CONVICTION, 



AND 



EXECUTION OF WILLIAM FOSTER. 




PREFATORY REMARKS. 

S we advance in civilization, the heart of mankind becomes softened. 
Many arguments, pro and con, have been suggested in regard to 
capital punishment. There are sentimental people, who, upon 
hearing that a murder has been committed, are profuse in their 
sympathy, and eager to see the murderer brought to speedy jus- 
tice. A short time elapses, and then those sympathetic mortals cry out 
"A commutation of the death sentence," " Poor man," etc. Let us try 
" imprisonment for life." Well, what do you make of it? A mere judi- 
cial farce, with a pardon in the prospective, and roughs, the cowardly 
scum of our crowded cities, laugh at it, and murders are of every day 
occurrence. Then we turn to hanging ; does it not strike terror to the 
hearts of those men who value no lives but their own? "Yes," we hear 
some one say ; but with that speaker we desire a moment's conversation. 
Do not the trials, following so long after the deed, lose their effect upon 
the public mind ? These legal technicalities, are they not rays of hope 
to the criminal and his friends ? How many murders are committed, 
while the first murderer awaits his trial, or trials? Take from the chief 
executive of the State his pardoning power, and when a felon is once sen- 
tenced for life, place that sentence beyond the power of any man, or men, 
to undo, then will these criminals tremble. If this cannot, or rather will 
not be done, then string them up say we, and let us have a matinee every 
.Friday, just as long as the murderers are plenty enough to enact the 
chief characters. Let it be understood, however, that we believe that no 
man, or men, have any right to take the life of a fellow-creature, and that 
God cannot sanction such things. When the huge cloud of ignorance, 
which has long darkened each century, shall have passed over, then do 
.we hope for better things. Judge not others by yourselves, for none of 

as, are alike. 

i9 



20 LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 

Governor Dix had filled the Executive chair but a little over two 
months, and for the second time he was called upon to discharge the most 
painful duty that falls to the lot of any public officer. Twice in that 
brief period he held the life of a fellow being at his mercy. Twice he 
has been compelled to listen to the touching cries of heartbroken rela- 
tives, of wives and children, fathers and mothers, who have prayed 
for the lives of those who were dear to them despite their crimes. Twice he 
has firmly resisted such appeals, in the conviction that justice to the peo- 
ple who have honored him with their confidence demanded that the 
penalty of the offended laws should be fully paid. The case of Foster 
was one of peculiar difficulty. Never perhaps in the history of the State 
have such tremendous efforts been made to secure the Executive clemency 
as have been exerted in behalf of the murderer of Avery D. Putnam. 
Ministers of the Gospel, judges, lawyers, politicians, men of large wealth 
and of high commercial standing have united their voices in favor of a 
commutation of the sentence passed upon the prisoner. The jurors who 
tried him, with one exception, have declared their verdict to have been 
rendered in the belief that it would insure the substitution of life impris- 
onment for the death penalty, and have expressed their opinion that the 
lesser punishment was sufficient atonement for the crime. A legal doubt 
was thus thrown about the case to add to its embarrassments. The wife 
of the murdered man begged the life of his murderer at the hands of the 
Governor. The father and m®ther of the unhappy prisoner, bowed down 
with shame and grief, supplicated for mercy. A wife, whose devotion to 
her guilty husband has been almost unparalleled, and children, just old 
enough to feel the loss of a father, have prayed that he might be spared 
the gallows, although doomed to perpetual separation from them during 
the remainder of his days. To all of these Governor Dix listened kindly 
and patiently ; but, while his heart has no doubt yearned to grant their 
prayers, and while he has, we know, been torn by conflicting emotions 
and has been seeking strength and light at the throne of Grace to guide 
him in his painful task; he has never lost sight of the stern demands of 
justice, and of that broader and deeper mercy which belongs to the people 
whose lives are endangered by the reckless ruffianism of the city. His 
sense of duty prevailed. He felt that red-handed murder, which has too 
long held a reign of terror in the metropolis, must be dethroned and 
crushed forever ; that the gallows must gather in its harvest in order that 
peaceful citizens may walk the streets in safety, and that happy homes 
may no longer be rendered desolate in a moment by the cruel hand of 
the assassin. 

The people of New York honor Governor Dix for the Roman firmness 
he has displayed in this most trying and distressing case, yet they do not 
withhold their pity from the unhappy man who gave up his life to the inex- 
orable demands of justice. No heart can be so hardened as to be unmoved 
at the thought of a human being, in the vigor of manhood, in the fuD 



LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 21 

enjoyment of health and strength, going forth to meet his death upon the 
scaffold ; looking out for the last time upon the light of day, upon the 
glories of sky and earth, upon the living faces of his fellow creatures, in 
the certainty that in one moment eternal darkness will fall upon his eyes, 
and his soul will be hurried forward on its awful journey into the presence 
of its Creator. No one can refuse sympathy with the innocent relatives 
of the criminal, who were crushed by the weight of their heavy grief •, 
with his loving, faithful wife, who wept alone- over her fatherless children ; 
with his parents, who have lived an honored and useful life, and whose 
virtues entitled them to look for a far different fate for their offspring. 
Yet very few will believe that Governor Dix committed an error in the 
course he pursued, or refuse to give him credit for an earnest desire to 
discharge his duty faithfully, regardless of his personal feelings and 
despite an unusual and almost resistless pressure. Even those who have 
been the most untiring in their appeals for mercy were forced to admit 
that it has been denied them only in the cause of justice. This does not 
imply that the efforts made by the friends of the unhappy prisoner to 
secure a commutation of his sentence have been in any degree censurable 
or improper. It was the privilege of all those to whom the guilty man 
is dear — of all who honor and respect his parents and who feel compas- 
sion for his wife and children — to use every exertion in their power to 
save him from the scaffold. Nature prompted his relatives to < untiring 
and persistent labor in his behalf, to the exhaustion of every means by 
which the Executive clemency might be secured. If they had faltered 
in this work they would have been less than human ; they would have 
been undeserving of that affectionate respect that is now felt for them in 
every manly heart. The crime for which Foster suffered, and the manner 
of his death can leave no stain upon them, for careless training and bad 
example did not lead him into sin. Neither should they affect the good 
name of his wife, for a devoted, faithful woman, and interesting children 
should have made his home dear to him, and withheld him from drunk- 
enness and ruffianism. Hence the almost superhuman efforts made by 
all his family in his behalf were the true and praiseworthy promptings 
of nature, and no word of censure or of reproach should ever be uttered 
against them. 

Our duty in this distressing case has been no less painful than that 
imposed upon the Governor. While we have felt as sincere pity for the 
family of Foster as could be entertained by their nearest friends, we have 
been constrained to study the public interests and to insist that mercy to 
the individual should not be yielded at the price of cruel injustice to the? 
people. Ruffianism has been and is still rampant in our large cities, and 
the palsied arm of Justice has hitherto been powerless to check its infa- 
mous career. So lax had become the administration of the law that a 
short time ago assassins did not dread to perpetrate their crimes in the 
r>rcW light of da v. It was the duty of an independent press and other 



22 LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 

publishers, to stand forward as the protectors of peaceful citizens and to 
demand the stern execution of the law upon all offenders. The newspa- 
per or publisher of pamphlets, that for sordid motives, or through other 
inducements, can be tempted to palliate the offence of a murderer, or to 
intervene between the gallows and its lawful prey, becomes the accom- 
plice of ruffians and assassins. 

It has been charged that we are bloodthirsty ; that we follow the crimi- 
nals who populate the Tombs as a sleuth-hound follows its victim. We 
can disregard all such revilings, for in insisting upon the exaction of the 
full penalty for murder we have been in truth most merciful, for we have 
helped to check the tide of ruffianism which was fast overflowing the cities 
of this country. The life of the. murderer is not the only stake in this 
fatal game. The life of the victim and the peace and happiness of the 
innocent relatives of both are to be taken into consideration, and it is a 
false humanity which prompts us to ignore all these for the sake of pro- 
longing the clays of a convicted assassin. These considerations alone have 
prompted our course and will induce us to continue our demand for the 
exaction of the penalty of death, in the cases of other murderers yet un- 
tried or unhung. These considerations prompt us, while deeply sympa- 
thizing with the family and friends of Foster, to applaud the firmness with 
which Governor Dix resisted the vigorous assault made upon his feelings, 
and gave forth the word, even at the very moment his own heart was 
lacerated by the sting of death, "the convicted murderer must surely die 
on the scaffold." 

His task is not yet accomplished. Gaffney has been hung in Buffalo; 
Foster executed in New York. The crimes of both of these men were 
committed under the frenzying influence of liquor. Wild with drink and 
incensed by losses at gambling, Gaffney rushed upon his victim in the 
street and killed him. Wild with drink and incensed by a quarrel in a 
street car, Foster rushed upon his victim and took his life. The law is 
vindicated in these cases. It is shown that the murderer who, under the 
excitement of furious passion, kills a fellow being must pay the full penalty 
of his offence. It may be true that he was beyond self-control, that he 
pulled the trigger or struck the blow unconscious of what he was doing; 
that he became a murderer without premeditation — almost without thought 
or knowledge of theact; but he must die upon the scaffold nevertheless. 
So far so good ; the example was needed. But now that the reckless, un- 
reflecting, drunken murderers are properly dealt with, it is time to turn 
our attention to the sober, calculating assassins, who premeditate their 
cowardly crimes, who track their victims to a convenient spot and shoot 
them down like rats in a trap. Gaffney and Foster are gone; how long 
shall the murderer Stokes be permitted to cheat the gallows? His fate is 
already sealed, for the Governor, who refused a commutation to Gaffney 
and Foster; could not even entertain an appeal for mercy for the deliberate 
and calculating assassin. The singular interposition of a Judge for a timg- 



... ...... •■ 




WILLIAM FOSTER, Tub "Car-hook " Mimona. 
»flf lam $9ft<e, be* Wttttet* 



LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 25 

averted his fate, but the Court could not and -would not make a mockery 
<of justice by granting him a new trial, and the decision of the Governor 
in his case was recorded in advance. Justice required his life. 



' THE CAR-HOOK MURDER. 

A COMPLETE HISTORY OF 

THE CRIME, THE TRIAL, THE VERDICT. 



THE JUDGE'S ADDRESS TO THE JURY, AND THE MURDERER 
AFTER THE VERDICT. 




NE of the most terrible crimes committed in the City of New York, 
was the murder of Avery D. Putnam, by William Foster. 

In the evening of Wednesday, April 26th, 1871, Mr. Putnam, 
who was a produce commission merchant, doing business at 168 
Pearl Street, left his residence in Cottage Place for a walk. Passing 
the residence of Madame Duval, of 762 Broadway, the hour being early, 
he dropped in, only intending to stay a few moments. Madame Duval 
stated to Mr. Putnam that her daughter, Anna Lillie, was at present sing- 
ing at the Church of the Advent — Forty-sixth Street — and that herself 
and younger daughter, Virginia, would soon go up to accompany her home. 
Mr. Putnam graciously tendered his services to escort the ladies, and for 
that purpose they were soon on the street, and in the fatal car. Nothing 
worthy of remark occurred until the vehicle reached the Gilsey House, 
corner of Twenty-ninth Street and Broadway. Madame Duval and Vir- 
ginia, sat at the right-hand side of the car, and directly opposite Mr. Put- 
nam. All occupied seats close to the front portion of the car. As the 
car reached the building, Mr. Putnam requested Miss Jennie's attention 
to the clock on the front of the hotel, and jokingly remarked to the ladies 
that it would require a pair of spectacles to see it in cloudy weather. On 
this, Miss Jennie, from her awkward position, strove to see the clock from 
the window, but failing in this, stooped down and looked through the glass 
in the door, but did not open it, as stated by some. This motion attracted 
the driver's attention, who, with an insulting leer, nudged the arm of a, 
man, evidently intoxicated, standing to the right. 



26 LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTEK. 

The fellow looked around 4uick, and pressing his face against the glass' 
in proximity to Miss Jennie, who had just sat down, smirked in an insult- 
ing manner. This brute, one William Foster, an ex-conductor of the line,'' 
seemingly not satisfied, opened the door and peered in, still grinning dia- 
bolically toward the ladies. No notice was taken of this until Foster with- 
drew his head. Madame Duval then closed the door, which Foster, deter- 
mined to bring on a row, repeatedly opened. Mr. Putnam now, becoming 
indignant, rose from his seat and passed out to the front platform of the, 
car, closing the door after him. Here Mr. Putnam remonstrated with 
Foster for his conduct, and begged him, as Madame Duval was suffering 
from nervous prostration, not to annoy her. This expostulation, instead 
of quieting the man, made him more insulting, and as Mr. Putnam passed 
back into the car, Foster followed him. 

Only three persons were in the car at the time, but, strange to remark, 
Foster made a feint to sit close beside Miss Jennie. Seeing this, Madame 
Duval clasped her daughter and placed her on the left side, away from 
Foster, whereupon he said : 

" What is it your business ? " 

To this Madame Duval replied : " She is my daughter, sir." 

Foster then turned around, sat down by Mr. Putnam, chuckling and 
jeering to provoke anger. Finding that Mr. Putnam took no notice of 
this, he then commenced to talk, but without any response from Mr. 
Putnam. At last, nettled by the silent contempt of his poor victim, he 
burst forth in saucy tones : 

a Say ? How far are you going up ? " 

Repeating this question twice, and receiving no reply, he brutishly 
said: 

" Well, I'm going as far as you, and before you get out I'll give you 
hell." 

With this Foster arose and passed to the front of the car. Nothing 
further transpired until the car stopped at Forty-sixth Street, upon the 
T'equest of Madame Duval, and Miss Jennie had already alighted. Mr. 
Putnam was still standing with his right foot on the platform, and his 
hand in that of Madame Duval, when the glare of the car-lamp flashed 
upon a piece of upraised iron, and a moment more a crushing sound' was 
heard. The blow descended on the head of Mr. Putnam, and he tumbled 
backward on the down track. Madame Duval shrieked for help, and 
shouted for the conductor to stay the car, but he violently jerked the 
bell, and the driver whipping up the horses, the car started at a break- 
neck speed up-town, the assassin the meanwhile throwing the murderous 
instrument on' the front of the car and running away in the' darkness. 
Here the crushed skull of the murdered man lay bleeding, with no assist- 
ance near, arid no officer in sight. After some time spent in persuasion, 
Madame Duval finally took the body, and, with the aid of her daughter, 
dragged it to the sidewalk 



LIFE, TKIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 27 

Late in the night the driver, Patrick Cunningham, and the conductor, 
Frederick Goldthwaite, were secured through the* forethought of a pas* 
senger who had noted the number of the car. 

On being taken to the Forty-seventh Street Station, they at first refused 
to divulge the name of the assassin, but finally confessed that it was Wil- 
liam Foster, and said that he lived in East Twenty-fourth Street. Officer 
Davis having been sent in search of the culprit, returned at three o'clock 
in the morning with Foster in custody. 

He was taken to the Tombs, where he was confined to await trial. 

He was brought into Court on the 22nd of May, and tried on the 
charge of murder. The jury found him guilty of murder in the first 
degree, with a recommendation to mercy. The verdict was rendered on 
the 25th of May. The sentence was passed on the 26th, and the 14th of 
July was fixed for Foster's execution. Early in July an application was 
made for a commutation of sentence, and a Writ of Error was granted on 
the 6th of July. On the 21st of February, 1872, the former judgment 
was affirmed at the General Term in the City of New York, and the 21st 
of March, 1872, was again fixed for the execution of the sentence. The 
application for commutation was renewed, and denied by Governor Hoff- 
man on the 4th of March, 1872. On the 11th of the same month, an- 
other Writ of Error to the Court of Appeals, with a Stay of Proceedings, 
was granted, and on the 21st of January, 1873, the previous judgment 
was again affirmed at the last-named Tribunal. Foster's account of him- 
self; the case for the prosecution ; the summing-up of the Judge ; the 
verdict; Foster's remand to the Tombs ; his sojourn there; a description 
of that prison and its surroundings; Governor Dix's letter to Dr. Tyng; 
the appeal of the seven jurors ; and the latest moments of the condemned, 
are treated elsewhere in this book. 



THE REPRIEVE OF TWO WEEKS. 

As soon as the action of Governor Dix — in reprieving the condemned 
man — became known, the entrance to the Tombs was thronged with re- 
presentatives of the Press and a curious crowd. For nearly half an hour 
the messenger bearing the Governor's dispatch addressed to Warden 
Johnson hammered at the door. 

Foster for some days previous had been steadily declining in health, 
and was unusually subdued and melancholy, scarcely speaking to anyone,' 
and seeming to be resigned to his fate. The night before, feeling cold, 
he requested permission to leave his cell and warm himself before the 
great stove. He sat alone before the fire, buried in thought. When he 
saw the officers approaching, he glanced at them with the stolid indiffer- 
ence which of late has become habitual to him, but suddenly catching 
sight of the document in the hand of Deputy Sheriff Dumphy, and quickly 
divining that it contained tidings of vital importance to him, he arose and 



28 LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 

advanced to meet the officers, his countenance betraying his terrible 
anxiety, though he did not speak. 

Before the silence was broken on either side, Foster had learned that 
his case, but a few moments before so desperate, was not altogether hope- 
less now. Yet when Deputy Sheriff Dumphy seized his hand in a con- 
gratulatory grasp, and joyfully told him that a reprieve had bee a granted, 
for a moment the fortitude which had upheld the prisoner through the 
latest and darkest hour of his imprisonment forsook him, and placing his 
hand upon his heart, he staggered back as though he\had received a blow. 
For some seconds he was unable to reply to the congratulations showered 
upon him, and stood with his eye fixed upon the Governor's dispatch. 
His first words, when he had sufficiently recovered himself to speak, were : 
* Is it possible ? You don't say so ? " 

POSTER'S STORY, AND A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE AS TOLD BY 

HIMSELF. 

My name is William Foster. I was born on the northeast con«er of 
Eleventh Street and Third Avenue, opposite the office of Charities and 
Correction, on the 15th of September, 1836. I began to go to school 
when I was five or six years of age, and continued at study until I was 
fourteen, attending school in Ninth Street, Twentieth Street, and Twenty- 
seventh Street. During the Winter Term of 1849, I attended boarding- 
school in Jonesville, sixteen miles above Troy. In the summer of 1850, 
I went through the Twentieth Street school a second time, and from thence 
to the Ferguson ville Academy, Delhi, N. Y., where I spent the Winter 
Term of that year. During the Winter Term of 1851, I returned to 
Jonesville Academy, and leaving there at the expiration of that term, I 
came to this city, and was apprenticed to a mason. That was in 1852. 
I worked at the trade for five years, and on the 17th September, 1857, 
I was married to Miss Jane Norton, of New York. I remained in this 
city until December 7th, 1857, when I started for Australia, accompanied 
by my wife. I remained there three years, and left there in November, 
1860, arriving home in March, 1861. I returned home and worked at 
my trade, as a mason, about a month, when I was appointed Inspector of 
Sewers by Thomas Stephens, President of the Croton Board. 

The sewer was completed in six months, and I was thrown out of em- 
ployment. Everything was dull here then, so, in October, 1861, I started 
i >r California. I only stayed there sixteen months, during which time I 
was foreman of a sewer in San Francisco, under a Mr. Glynn; when 
hearing that my wife, whom I had left in New York, was lonely, I took 
passage for home, arriving here in March, 1863. Again I returned to my 
trade, pursuing it steadily until 1867, when 1 was laid up with rheuma- 
tism for four months, and what little money I had succeeded in saving 
tip, soon melted away. On my recovery, my father started a livery stabla 



LIFE, TRIAL, ANT) EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 29 

for me at 355 East Twentieth Street ; but in July, 1870, I was compelled 
to give it up. I was then appointed Inspector of pavements, by William 
Tweed, and held the office until September, 1870. During October and 
November of that year I was idle, and in December I went to work as a 
conductor on the Fourth Avenue horse-car line. I remained there ten 
weeks, and left for the same position on the Broadway and Seventh 
Avenue road. I had been there five weeks lacking two days, and that 
brings me up to the date of this occurrence (meaning the death of Mf 
Putnam). I had been excused from duty the day before, and on Wedne « 
day, April 26th, I had run one trip on car No. 73, when I went to the 
starter and asked to be excused, because I was unfit for duty ; I was 
drunk. The public may draw their own conclusions from what followed, 
but this I must and will say, I had no thought of killing Mr. Putnam, at 
the time or previous. Drink had crazed my brain, and to that cursed 
demon, which steals into society of all kinds, and works its damning deeds, 
may I render thanks for the position I now occupy. 

THE CASE FOB THE PROSECUTION. 

On Wednesday, the 24th of May, the testimony for and against the 
prisoner was all in, and oounsel for the defence having closed on behalf 
of accused, Judge Garvin proceeded to address the jury, for the prosecu- 
tion. After a lengthy exordium replying to certain strictures made by 
Mr. Bartlett (Foster's counsel) upon the conduct of the case for the people, 
Mr. Garvin said : No oapital case on the records of this court has been 
presented with equal promptitude. The prisoner's counsel admits that a 
great crime has been committed — a view in which the whole community 
eoncurs. It is therefore the court's duty to afford protection to the people 
of this vast metropolis, over which crime is now riding almost unchecked. 

It is true that the prisoner has a wife and children. So had Mr. Put- 
nam, who has been slain by the accused. What is law ? What is it 
worth if it does not furnish a security for life, and a condign punishment 
for criminals ? Order, and the best interests of society, are in peril if 
such an act as Avery Putnam's murder is allowed to go unrequited. 

The defence has said that murder was taking the life of a fellow - 
creature with a premeditated design to kill. Such an intent was plainly 
present in this case. Mr. Putnam was in the car in the peace of Go«!, 
and was entitled to, and was under, the protection of the law. 

The prisoner, who was a man in years and discretion, having a family 
of his own, sat beside deceased, and tried to get answer from him as to 
how far he was going.' Finding that he could not get one, he got up and 
vengefully said : " I will go as far as you go, and before you leave the 
car I'll give you hell." 

Foster had got on board the car at Sixteenth Street He lived in 
Twenty-second Street. Now, why did he not alight when he reached the 
latter? Whv did he ride on still further? More than that, why did he 



SO LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 

ask the driver, " Have you got the car hook ?•" Again, when he reached 
the corner of Forty -sixth Street he waited for the bell, and when the 
vehicle stopped, he seized the car hook, alighted, and running along the 
west side of the car, he struck Mr. Putnam on the head, and slew him, 
Now. that was exactly what he meant to do. 

His intent was evident, inasmuch as his query about the car hook was 
put to the driver four blocks below the scene of the murder. That was 
sufficient to show premeditation — nay, it can be proven still further. 
Foster had been given one moment's chance when the driver caught his 
arm and said, a Don't." But Foster turned upon the driver and menaced 
him with the weapon. Was not purpose evident in that act ? He then 
went to deceased, and struck him a tremendous blow, which must have 
been brought down with both hands. 

Now, all this showed threats, plans, purpose, premeditation, and deter- 
mination. 

Counsel then referred to the case of Rogers who took Swanson's life 
with a knife, and to the Larkin case, as proving that intoxication was no 
extenuation of the offence. He also referred to the Nathan murder, say- 
ing that he supposed the defence would say that he who murdered that 
defenceless old gentleman, when there was none but God to see the terri- 
ble deed, that the murderer had no intent to kill, that his only purpose 
was robbery. 

If a man irill another without any provocation the law implies malice. 
It is the premeditation, the design that is. necessary to constitute the 
offence of murder. Now, gentlemen ! was there any provocation in this 
case. Neither Foster nor Putnam ever saw the other before. The victim 
had used no insulting words. Nevertheless the prisoner cannot explain 
the act. There are none but the living witnesses who do explain it 

With regard to the condition of the mind of Foster, it is right that 
the jury should know that two hours after the fatal occurrence, Foster 
had sufficient memory to remember his act, and its attendant circum- 
stances. At the depot, when the two car conductors. were writing the 
report of the assault, Foster started up, and said : " I am the man who 
did it." 

As to the consideration of the suspension or the annihilation of the 
faculties, Foster knew that he had taken the driver's hook, and he said 
to the driver, when he got to the depot, " Let's take a drink," and they 
took drinks together. 

The deed was without provocation ; it was done with full intent, pre- 
meditation, and malice. The evidence of all is, that he resolved it in his 
mind ; looked for an instrument ; went around the west side of the car, 
and stole on his unsuspecting victim. He is, therefore, fairly responsible 
for his conduct. Finally, the counsel for the prisoner admit that the 
great mass of the evidence is true. 




A"\TERY D. PUTNAM, The Murdkbed Mam. 



I LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. dtf 

JUDGE CARDOZO'S CHABGR 

At the conclusion of District Attorney Garvin's remarks, Judge Car* 
dozo charged the jury as follows: — 

Each of the counsel of the prisoner has submitted to me certain requests 
to charge, and I shall take them up in their order. First, as to the re- 
quests submitted by Mr. Bartlett — I charge the first : That the law of 
murder, as it formerly existed in this State, so far as it adjudged from the 
mere act of killing, although it could not be proved that the same was 
done of malice aforethought, has been repealed. I charge the second, as 
the law stands now : The killing of a human being without authority of 
law, is murder in the first degree, murder in the second degree, man 
slaughter, or excusable or justifiable homicide, according to the facts and 
circumstances of each case. I charge the third: It is exclusively within 
the province of the jury to pass upon the facts and circumstances, and to 
determine the degree of offence, and under an indictment for murder in 
the first degree, the jury may find a verdict of murder in the second de- 
gree, or of any degree of manslaughter. I charge the fourth : If the jury 
have a reasonable doubt from the evidence as to what degree of guilt to 
convict of, it is their duty to convict of the lesser degree. I charge the 
fifth : More is necessary than a blow with an instrument likely to kill, to 
constitute murder in the first degree. There must be intention, delibera- 
tion, premeditation. I charge a portion of the sixth: To constitute mur- 
der in the first degree, the jury must find not only that the prisoner de- 
signed to kill his victim, but that it was a premeditated design. I decline 
to charge the rest of it. I charge the seventh : In determining the intent, 
as in determining any other question, the jury are to take into considera- 
tion all the facts and circumstances of the case; and to justify them in 
finding a verdict of murder in the first degree, the evidence not only of 
an intent to take life, but of premeditation, must be such as to exclude 
from their minds, to a moral certainty, every hypothesis but that of this 
highest degree of crime. I decline to charge the eighth. I decline to 
charge the ninth. I charge the tenth : Although a deadly weapon was 
used, it is a question of fact for the jury to determine with what intent it 
was used. I decline to charge the eleventh, except so far as is embraced 
in my general charge. I decline to charge the twelfth. I charge the 
thirteenth : The killing of a human being without a design to effect death, 
in the heat of passion, but in a cruel and unusual manner, is in no case 
murder, or any crime greater than manslaughter in the second degree. I 
oharge the fourteenth : Whatever the intention of Foster in assaulting 
Mr. Putnam may have been, if it was not a premeditated design to take 
bis life, it matters not how long the intention had been entertained : It 
does not constitute murder in the first degree. 

In respect to the requests presented by Judge Stuart on behalf of the 
prisoner, I decline to charge the first. I charge the second. On this ii*> 
3 



84 LIFE, TKIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 

dictment the jury can convict of murder in the second degree, or of some one of 
the degrees of manslaughter. I decline to charge the third. I charge the 
fourth : Before the jury can convict the prisoner of murder in the first 
degree, they must find, from the evidence, that the prisoner had a specific, pre- 
meditated design to effect the death of the deceased, or of some human being : 
that they must be able to say, beyond doubt, that such was his specific 
design. 

There were several other minor points offered by the defence on which 
Judge Cardozo charged the jury; but the foregoing were the most impor- 
tant. Having, then, carefully reviewed the law and statutes applicable to 
this case, his Honor closed thus: "Deal justly with the prisoner. It is 
important to the people, who need protection from mui derers : for, if law- 
lessness be not restrained by the firm discharge of their duty as jurors, in 
a proper case, the hand of the assassin which ' destroys a citizen to-day, 
may attack another to-morrow." 

VERDICT OP THE JURY. 

The jury retired, and after having the statute on murder in the first 
degree fully explained to them, were locked up for the night. When the 
Court reassembled in the morning, after answering their names, the jury 
were addressed by the Clerk, in this way: 

"Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon your verdict?" 

Mr. Hendrickson, the foreman, said — " We have." 

The Clerk — u How say you, gentlemen ? " 

Mr. Hendrickson — " We find the prisoner guilty of murder in the first 
degree, but we recommend him to mercy." 

On Friday, May 26th, Foster was sentenced to death. Then there came 
the stay of proceedings, followed by the review of the Court record, and 
the decision of the Court of Appeals thereon. We have already given 
the summary of the subsequent events in this cause celebre 

THE TOMBS. 

Among all New ^ork City Prisons, there is none which has a more un- 
enviable notoriety than the Tombs. Not that it is essentially worse than 
others (and all are bad enough), but it is most prominently brought before 
the public, from its connection with the Foster case, and also from the 
fact that it is situated near the City Hall, easy of access, and is, besides, a 
sort of omnium gatherum into which every rascal and unfortunate honest 
man is introduced on his way to liberty with a blasted character, or on 
his way to the Penitentiary, with no character at all. 

We know of no place within the precincts of the vast city in which one 
may spend an hour with more profit, if he is morally disposed, than the 
Tombs — -we do not mean under arrest, but simply as a visitor, intent upon 
viewing a melancholy phase of metropolitan life. Every form of vice is 
before the eye, as exhibited by tbe shrinking youth, just incarcerated for 



LIFE, TKIAL, AND EXECUTION OF Wlf. FOSTER. 35 

Lis first crime, up to the notorious villain who finds his only comfortable 
home within the dreary walls of his familiar cell. Too many, unfortun- 
ately, know the process of an introduction to this " den of thieves," this 
home of misery. But for the benefit of the happily ignorant, we will 
take our readers on a visit, and note the most remarkable things inside 
and out. 

The Tombs, as it was properly christened by public consent, was buiL 
some forty years ago, nearly in the centre of what was known to the 
older inhabitants as the Collect Pond. At the time of its erection there 
were few buildings in the vicinity, and those of the most wretched char- 
acter, and the whole place wore a sad, dilapidated look, and yet this local- 
ity is within three or four blocks of the City Hall. To get a foundation for 
the prison, huge piles or timbers were driven into the swampy ground, 
and so soft and miry were the depths below, that many huge trunks of 
trees perpendicularly, by their own weight, sunk out of sight. Labor 
finally triumphed, and a resting-place was created for the foundations, and 
they were {inly commenced. 

We have not been able to learn the name of the architect of this 
44 Egyptian pile," but we can say of him — as we think of the builder of the 
Merchants' Exchange in Wall Street — that the highest order of genius 
has been displayed to defeat the objects for which the edifice was created, 
and that heavy marble walls and unnecessary columns usurp all the choice 
localities which should have been dedicated to the use of living, breath- 
ing men. The style is of the Egyptian order run mad, all the available 
space on the streets being taken up by shapeless shafts of huge rocks, very 
well when on the side of the granite hills of the Nile, but very much in 
the way in the crowded precincts of New York City. The locality is 
bounded by Centre, Franklin, Elm and Leonard Streets, the main en- 
trance being on Centre Street, leading to the Court of Sessions. The en- 
trance for the prisoners to be confined is on Franklin Street, as is also the 
^ate through which passes the " Black Maria," loaded with male and fe- 
male convicts on their way to Blackwell's Island. 

Upon the arrest of an individual for rowdying or thieving, or other- 
wise, he is first taken to a "Station House," where he is searched, and 
placed in a cell over night ; in the morning he is brought before the 
presiding magistrate at the Court of Sessions, where the charge is made, 
and if no bail is given, the prisoner is taken around on Franklin Street, 
at the entrance proper of the prison. Here you come to a large hall, d^. 
vided up by railings, the object of which seems to be to make comfort- 
able places for idlers to lounge behind. Near the entrance door, however, 
is a railing, behind which is a desk. Here the prisoner has his name and 
crime entered upon the register. His personal description is taken; the 
numDer of the cell to which he is consigned is noted down, and he passes 
on to the " Interior of the Prison Yard." 

Here all is repulsive enough ; the rough, heavy walls, pierced with 



36 LIFE, TBIAL. AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 

loopholes and frowning with grated doors, seem to aflbrd little chance for 
escape ; but entering the door which is seen in the centre, and under the 
bridge which connects the upper stories of the adjacent buildings, you 
come at once to long rows of small cells, each numbered and each pro- 
vided with two doors, the outward one of solid iron, the interior one 
grated so as to expose the prisoner, and show to the spectator an imperfect 
view of the furniture, which consists simply of a rough bunk or cot, rarely 
any other article of comfort. Throughout the day the outside doors are 
open, at nightfall they are closed. The interior presents three stories of 
Corridors, which are reached by light iron steps, and are entered by 
arrow galleries. 

If you desire to see a prisoner, having procured a pass from the Com- 
missioners of " Charities and Correction," by entering the prison on 
Franklin Street you meet a keeper holding slips of paper in one hand, 
and a pencil in the other. By asking to see a prisoner, you have no 
difficulty if you know the number of the cell, as all personality is lost in 
numerals. You get a slip of official paper on which is written* the num- 
ber of the cell containing your friend, and keepers stationed about in diffe- 
rent places show you the designated point. Having reached it, you have 
the satisfaction of talking through the grates and conversing with a human 
being, as you would with a tiger or any wild beast — a man in civilized 
society being shut up from society for having moral fangs and teeth, just 
as lions are for possessing the physical representatives of these destruc- 
tive accessories. 

The cells where the convicted murderers are confined consist of four 
floors. The cells of the first floor are ten feet six inches in height and 
eleven by five feet seven inches in ground measurement ; the second, 
third, and fourth floors successively contract in area, the cells on the 
fourth being ten feet high and seven by five feet five inches on the floor. 
Light is admitted through a window about two feet long by five inches 
wide, located near the ceiling. Above each door is a little slate bearing 
the name of the occupant. No more discriminating appellation could be 
given this portion of the prison than the one it has held for many years, 
" Murderers 1 Row." 

Near the entrance, and immediately back of the stove, is cell No. 4. A 
middle-aged lady in deep mourning and two gentlemen are conversing 
with the inmate, Edward S. Stokes, convicted of the murder of Colonel 
James Fisk, Jr. Through the upper corner of the wire door, the thin 
figure is seen, with head slightly inclined. He is smoking a eigar, and 
we hear the admonition : "Keep cool, Ed.; don't get discouraged ; your 
counsel are working like beavers." 

Further along the corridor, we come to cell No. 15, in which Patrick 
Leavy has been confined since the 12th of October last, on the charge of 
having killed his wife. 

Completing the tour of this corridor, we pass upstairs and along the 



LIFE TRIAL. AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER 37 

baJcorv. 5u N>. S'j we nnd Robert Bleakley, and in the adjoining one 
John ijcajQQell, committed November 8th, for the shooting of Thomas 
Donahue, in a pool-room. William J. Sharkey has occupied cell No. 41 
since the 4th of September, having shot " Bob Isaacs " during a quarrel. 
In 42 is James C. King, who shot Anthony O'Neil, on the 18th of Novem- 
ber, after a hearing on a divorce suit ■ before Judge Sutherland. In the 
next, with his head bent to catch every word of a friend, is William Fos 
ter, who killed Avery D. Putnam with a car-hook, in April, 1871' 
David Murphy shot David Barry in a drinking-saloon, in April last, aid 
has occupied No. 44 since the 22d of that month. Cell No. 45 has held 
three murderers during the past year. On the 8th of April Frederick 
Heggi was committed, charged with poisoning Frederick J. Siegfried, in 
1869. On the 3d of December James Fitzpatrick, and on the 6th, John 
Lynn, were committed to this cell to await trial. 

Passing still further, we come to No. 70, where we read the name of 
Charles Cardes, committed December 30 ; and No. 71, to which John 
Fitzgibbons was ordered on the same day. 

There are fourteen persons altogether confined on charges of murder. 

The gallows on which Foster was hanged, has thus far launched into 
eternity thirteen human beings. The following are their names : Nathan 
Gordon, February 21st, 1862 ; Wm. Henry Hawkins, June 27th, 1862 ; 
Bernard Fruery, August 17th, 1866 ; Frank Ferris, October 19th, 1866 ; 
Geo. Wagner, March 1st, 1867 ; Jerry O'Brien, August 2d, 1867 ; John 
Reynolds, April 8th, 1870; John Keal, August 5th, 1870; and John 
Thomas, March 10th, 1871. Besides these there were Gonfcales, Pellisier 
and Bodgers, who were hanged in Brooklyn, and lastly William Foster, 
March 21st, 1873. 

AN OPINION FROM THE RELIGIOUS PRESS. 

[From the Cliureh and State (Episcopalian), March 12.] 

As the result of the whole discussion we cannot resist the conclusion 
that Foster was not legally convicted and cannot be legally hung. If we 
are pointed to the decision of the Court of Appeals, we have only to say 
that it does not appear that this Court has ever passed upon the propriety 
of the verdict of the lower Court, but that it simply passed upon excep- 
tions taken by the counsel for the prisoner. 

In what we have said, we are moved by no pity for the condemned, 
other than that which every Christian man should feel for one who has 
so grievously sinned and is meeting so terrible a punishment. If we be- 
lieved he could be legally executed, no word of ours should be uttered 
to avert his doom We urge no facts in his behalf except those which 
bear directly upon the character of the act which he committed. We 
have no scruples about capital punishment and no sentimental philan 
tnropy in regard to criminals. But we hold it to be of the utmost im-" 



as LIFE, TRIAL 

portance that the death penalty should never be inflicted exe^o in ene 
strictest accordance with law, and where the infliction carries v\ ^a is tue 
best moral sense of the community. 

Some of the papers have taken great umbrage at the fact that certain 
clergymen have expressed their views : in "favor of the commutation of 
this sentence. We trust that clergymen will be little troubled by this, 
but will have the manliness to hold and utter their convictions on all 
subjects which so vitally affect the moral welfare of the community. 
They will cease to be needed in the world when they do not dare to set 
public sentiment at defiance, if necessary, in the maintenance of what 
they believe to be true and right. 

"We take no exception to anything in the form of argument or earnest 
appeal on the part of those who believe that the penalty of death should 
be inflicted in this particular case. They have a perfect right to the ex- 
pression of their opinions, and their arguments and appeals should re- 
ceive all v the consideration to which they are entitled. But when they 
affirm that a great pressure has been brought to bear upon the clergy 
and the press, and that thousands and thousands of dollars have been ex- 
pended, if they mean to intimate that the clergymen who have exercised 
in this respect the right of every citizen have been influenced by any 
corrupt motive, we pronounce it to be false. As for the press we can 
speak only for ourselves, and we do so only lest our silence in this res- 
pect should rob what we have said of any influence it might otherwise 
possess. We wish, then, to declare, in the most solemn manner, that we 
have never b8en subjected to the slightest pressure to express our views 
on this subject, that we have received nothing but the thanks of those 
interested, but that we have been the constant recipients of abusive anony- 
mous letters and attempted intimidations from those who are opposed 
to the position we have taken. 

•The discussion of this subject cannot fail to do good after the excite- 
ment by which it has been attended has subsided. It has been an edu- 
cation of the community in the great principles which apply to the admi- 
nistration of justice — an education apparently much needed. The Gov- 
ernor, who has a responsibility in this respect from which any one might 
shrink, will discharge his duty after the most thorough and conscientious 
investigation. Our purpose is accomplished by the vindication of the 
"right and propriety of a review of the whole proceeding with reference 
to the exercise of Executive clemency, and of the privilege which evory 
citizen enjoys of expressing his opinion in matters of public interest and 
petitioning the constituted authorities in regard to them, should he see f|t 
to do so. 

MRS. DUVAL INTERVIEWED. 

We now lay before our readers the following brief account of an inter- 
* view had by a reporter with the Duval family, the ladies of which, it will 




MAIN YARD OF THE TOMBS. 
$«uptM tor SQtnb*. 



LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER, 41 

be remembered, were in company with Mr. Putnain when Foster assassi- 
nated him : — 

In the vestibule of an elegant mansion on East Twentieth Street, the 
writer one morning met Miss Jennie Duval, the young lady in defence of 
whom Avery D. Putnam was killed, by William Foster, two years ago. 

" Mamma is very sick," she said ; " perhaps I will do as well ? " 

" I wished to know if any persons have asked your mother to sign the 
petition for commuting the sentence of William Foster?" 

" I will speak to mamma ; w and, having ushered her visitor into the 
parlor, she whisked away. 

Presently a pleasant-faced man entered the room, and said : — 

* Mrs. Duval will be down as soon as she can dress. Can I do any- 
thing -for you?" 

In answer to an inquiry, he said : — 

"Before I came to this country, I studied law for seven years in France, 
>n that couniry they are very severe on criminals, and, of course, I look 
on this case of Foster through the eyes of my countrymen. I think if 
Governor Dix knew the circumstances as I and my family know them, he 
would not hesitate a moment as to his duty. Since Foster's conviction, 
his friends have done all in their power to injure us. There has been a 
detective watching the family for the last eighteen months, trying to find 
something against u&. We have given 

NO RECEPIIONS SINCE ME. PUTNAM'S DEATH, 

and our visitors have been only intimate friends. They have failed to 
intimidate us, and I believe they have sounded Mrs. Duval on the subject 
of money. Here she is ; ahe can tell you about it better than I." 

Mrs. Duval described, ia feeling language, the scene of the assault on 
Mr. Putnam. She said : — 

" I have not known a well day since that awful night. That horrible 
picture is ever before me. The surgeons may say what they please, but 
Mr. Putnam was as much a dead man at half-past nine that night, as he 
was the next day. ! Saint Foster ' — I call him ' Saint,' now that so many 
men have testified to his religious sentiments — struck him twice — not 
once, as his friends assert — with a 'wire' large enough to kill any man." 

Ilere the lady's eyes filled with tears. 

" lias any one approached you on the subject of commuting Foster's, 
sentence, Mrs. Duval? " 

u Indirectly, they have, on three occasions. About eighteen months 
ago a man called here to tali with me about Foster. He said to mes 
*You are not desirous to see Mr. Foster hanged, are you?' I told him 
my desire was to see justice dene. I thought if there was any punishment 
worse than hanging, it should be meted out to him. He then said to me • 
'It would be for your advantage to have him saved !' I rose and closed 
the interview at once. I told the man that the advantage of society de 



42 LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 

manded that Foster should be put out of the way, I was a poor woman, 
but I could neither be intimidated nor bought over to perpetrate an out- 
rage on justice. He went away; Some time after that I met this man 
again. It was just at the time when Mrs. Putnam had recovered damages 
from the railroad company. He said again, ' It will be for your advan- 
tage to have this man saved from hanging. There is a great deal of 
money in it, as you can see.' I repeated to him, my former words, and 
ave never seen him since. I think it was the same man who is now ae- 
used of bribing Mrs. Putnam. Last week another attempt to sound my 
deling? on the subject was made. A lady called on me and began talk- 
ing about Splint Foster. At last she said : ' You are not willing to see 
him hanged, are you? It is in your power to save this man's life.' I 
told her Mr. Putnam's life had been sacrificed in the cause of society; I 
considered both him and myself as martyrs to that cause. If society was 
now willing to sacrifice both him and me by allowing tne murderer to 
escape, I would have no hand in it. She then said : ' But, supposing 
there was money for you in this thing; or, putting it in another form, 
supposing this man is hanged: he has friends large in political and money 
influence. The well-being of yourself and your daughters might be en- 
dangered for the next twenty } r ears. You do not know the power of his 
friends as I do. Your very life may be in danger.' I started from my 
seat and faced her. My indignation was thoroughly aroused now. I said : 
Madam, it is no new thing for me to have my life threatened. I heard 
one of Foster's counsel say, during the first trial, that the main thing they 
wanted was to get rid of the principal witness. I was then very sick, and 
they postponed and postponed, hoping that I would die. I am living yet 
to remain true to the best friend myself and my husband ever had.' She 
left me, then, and I have not been approached on the subject yet." 

" Mrs. Duval, did your impressions of Foster on that night lead you to 
believe that he was an exemplary Sabbath-school pupil ? " 

" They led me to believe the truth — that he was a drunken loafer, his 
face was bleared with the habitual use of rum. I am surprised that Dr. 
Tyng should say that he was a scholar of his. He may have been a 
scholar in the church over which Dr. Tyng now presides. I was a mem- 
ber of his church — the Epiphany, in Philadelphia — and the Doctor came 
to New York at the same time, I was about to say in the same car, that 
1 did. That was thirteen years ago. Foster is now about thirty-six 
years old. He was a pretty large Sunday-school scholar if he studied 
under Dr. Tyng." 

When the conversation ended Mrs. Duval sent for her two daughters, 
Jennie and Annie, and introduced them. 

" This," she said, pointing to Jennie, " is the little girl, a mere child 
then, as you can see, whom that ruffian insulted ; and this," introducing 
Annie, " is the young lady whom we were going to accompany home from 
#burcr- I am afraid Foster's sentence will be commuted. If it is, 



LIFE, TEIAL, AXD EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 4S 

Governor Dix will have betrayed :nu crust- reposed in him by the people, 
whose interests he has sworn to protect." 

THE ALLEGED BRIBERY OF MRS, FUTNAM. 

WAS SHE PAID A LARGE SUM OF 'MONEY TO WRITE A LETTER TO GOV. 

DIX, ASKING A COMMUTATION OF FOSTER'S SENTENCE ? 

The merchants of Broad, Beaver, South William and Pearl Streets 
-were greatly excited over statements made by William L. Allen, butter 
merchant, 67 Pearl Street, that money had been paid to Mrs. Avery D. 
Putnam for signing the letter to Governor Dix. The report circulated 
rapidly and was the sole theme of conversation in the Produce Exchange. 
A reporter called upon William L. Allen to get his statement of the 
alleged bribery. 

Keporter — Mr. Allen, it is asserted that you are cognizant of the fact 
that Mrs. Avery D. Putnam has been paid $15,000 by friends of Foster 
to sign the letter which has been published. 

Mr. Allen — There is no doubt but that moo^y has been used, but as 
Mrs. Putnam is a full cousin of my wife I must decline to give you any 
statement for publication. 

Reporter — If money was used, by whom was it furnished ? 

Mr. Allen — The money came from a rich relative of Foster. 

Reporter — Was not $15,000 a good deal of money to pay for such a 
letter ? 

Mr. Allen — I acted as adviser for Mrs. Putnam, and must decline to 
say anything further. 

Reporter — Do you think, then, that the letter had any effect with the 
Governor ? 

Mr. Allen — It certainly should not have any more weight than frori 
any one else. Personally I am in favor of hanging Foster; but my 
family relations are such that I must decline to talk further. 

William A. Covert, of the firm of W. A. Covert & Co., No. 68 Pearl 
Street, was next called upon and stated : The statements of Mr. Allen in 
regard to the payment of money to Mrs. Putnam have been made directly 
oy him to myself, as well as to a number of other men here in the neigh- 
borhood, each and every one of whom are willing and ready to make affi- 
davits to the facts. Mr. Allen stated to me that negotiations with Mrs. 
Putnam had been begun by the friends of Foster more than one year ago. 
As a relative I was called in as adviser. Mr. Willcox, of the Willcox & 
Gibbs Sewing Machine Company, went on to Providence to negotiate with 
Mrs. Putnam; he acted as the go-between through which the compromise 
was consummated ; the first proposition presented to Mrs. Putnam was an 
agreemeut to educate her son. Mr. Allen declared that he advised her not 
feo accept any terms unless money was offered. He advised her to ask 
$25,000, and not to take less than $15,000. He also advised her not to 
sign anv lette" until tV ^ money was put into her hands. He stated also 



U LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 

that he had been absent for some time and did not know exactly what sum 
was paid, but was certain that it was not less than $15,000. In fact, he 
went so far as to say that he might have made $5000 out of the business 
himself if he had promised to use his influence with Mrs. Putnam. Mr. 
Allen concluded by saying that " now that Mrs. Putnam had received the 
money, he did not care who knew the story." Therefore I do not have 
any hesitation in making this statement. 

Mr. Austin G. Putnam, brother to the murdered man, here entered the 
office of Covert & Co., and affirmed that he had been told the same story 
by William L. Allen. All were astonished at Allen's reticence after the 
manner in which he had previously spoken of it. 

Mr. George Hollister, of Hoi lister & Chamberlain's, No. 90 Broad Street, 
was next called on. He confirmed in every particular the statements made 
by Mr. Covert and Mr. Putnam, and said that Mr. Allen had repeated the 
story to him. 

Mr. Hurlburt, of Hurlburt & Sons, No. 65 Pearl Street, made the same 
statement to the reporter, with the additional item that Mr. Allen had told 
him privately of the negotiation more than one month ago. 

H. Henneberger, former partner of Avery D. Putnam, also stated that 
Mr. Alien had told him the same story in general. All of these will stand 
ready to make affidavits to their statements. 

A PETITION FROM THE MERCHANTS. 

The following petition was drawn up and circulated for signatures : 

To His Excellency, John A. Dix, Governor of the State of New York : 

We, the undersigned, in consideration of the unholy means employed 
to defeat the ends of justice in the case of William Foster, condemned for 
the murder of Mr. Putnam, do earnestly pray you to wholly ignore all 
signatures, petitions and letters to your Excellency, and decide only on 
points of law and evidence, such as the corrupting influence of money 
has not touched. 

H. Henneberger, 68 Pearl Street; William Hurlburt & Son, 65 Pearl 
Street ; N. Stetson, Jr., 73 Pearl Street ; Benjamin Ford, 69 Pearl Street ; 

E. S. Robinson, 73 Pearl Street ; A. A. Piatt, 73 Pearl Street ; Benjamin 

F. Dominick, 69 Pearl Street; Benjamin F. Tuthill, 191 Duane Street; 
William L. Allen, 67 Pearl Street; George B. Darley, 10 Pine Street; 
Edward A. Sewer, 49 Pearl Street ; B. F. Card, 37 Pearl Street ; J. M. 
Atwater & Brother, 61 Pearl Street ; A. W. & F. W. Leggett, 36 Pearl 
Street; William P. Bobbins, 33 Pearl Street; W. R. Preston & Co., 66 
Pearl Street. 

INTERVIEWS WITH THE PETITIONERS. 

The gentlemen who signed the above petition knew Mr. Putnam per- 
sonally in his life time, and were cognizant of his many good qualities 
and of his failings. Tho petition was therefore made with full cognizance 



LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 45 

of all the circumstances of the case, and was got up by the friends of 
Putnam to counteract the great influence which had been brought to 
bear upon the Governor that he might aecord the condemned man grace 
of his life. It will be noticed in the interviews given below that the 
general opinion prevails that all the statements made came in reality from 
one source, and that the gentlemen interviewed pretend to know abso- 
lutely nothing of their own knowledge, but to have taken for granted the 
statements which were made to them by their friends. On the other hand, 
it is said that the most important point has been a matter of conversa- 
tion around the Produce Exchange, where all state that no secret what- 
ever was made of the matter, but that on the contrary it was given all the 
publicity possible among those who took a peculiar interest from the fact 
that they had known the dead man, Putnam, and it seems singular that 
the story which has been so well known among them for some time should 
not have become publicly known before. But here again it appears that 
Mr. Allen, who first gave the report currency, according to the statements 
of all, only did so after Mrs. Putnam received the money, saying that then 
he had no further interest in keeping it quiet. 

Among those who signed the petition, Mr. Henneberger lives in Mel- 
rose, Mr. Tuthill in New Jersey. The others, with the exception of the 
three who have been seen, and from whom it was fair to infer that all 
which would be of any interest or importance has been obtained, are not 
mentioned in the directory. The reporter was therefore obliged to con- 
fine himself in his researches to these three — Mr. Stetson, Mr. W. R. 
Preston and Mr. F. W. Leggett, who live in the city. 

The reporter first proceeded to the house of Mr. W. Stetson, Jr., at 
232 West Fifty-fourth Street, and acquainted that gentleman with the 
object of his mission. Mr. Stetson said he was quite willing to say all he 
knew about the matter, which, however, he added, was little. 

" You signed the petition ? " said the reporter. » 

" Yes." 

" You notice the words ' in consideration of the unholy means employed. 
To whom or to what does that refer, as also the phrase 'such as the cor- 
rupting influences of money have not touched?'" 

Mr. Stetson — " To the best of my belief these phrases refer to the money 
which has been paid to Mrs. Putnam to give her name to the letter asking 
for a commutation of sentence for Foster." 

" Do you know that money has been paid to Mrs. Putnam for the use 
of her name ? " 

" I have no doubt that it has. And yet it has simply come by hearsay 
to me, though it is a matter of notoriety to many of us." 

" And what is the source of this information ? " 

"It oomes from Mr. Allen, whose name is signed to the petition. Mr. 
Covert, who occupies the store at No. 68 Pearl Street, formerly used by 
the murdered Putnam has been circulating this petition around and 



46 LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 

has been very active ■ in getting names. He drew it up, i.rJ. has 
shown great interest in the matter. lie told me that Mr. Allen had dis- 
:..:-':/ K'U- hh:i tbat Mrs.-. Putnam had had overtures made to her some 
time ago to put her name to. a petition, and at that time the offer made to 
her was to take her child and educate it. This she refused to do, and 
then the proposition of giving her $15,0.00 was made. At this time she, 
it appears, consulted with Mr. Allen, who is some relative of hers. I 
understand that even the $15,000 was refused, but at all events the bar- 
gain was finally consummated at something between $15,000 and 
$25,000." 

" Is Mrs. Putnam so poor that it was necessary for her to take this 
money ? " 

." There is no doubt that she is in very needy circumstances, and that 
she has no small difficulty in supporting herself. Putnam was a man 
who did a small business, and just did about enough to support himself 
and his family ; nothing more. lie was not able to put anything by, and 
when he died, his widow, I believe, had all she could do to support her- 
self." 

" You have then no positive knowledge that money has been used to 
buy Mrs. Putnan to petition for her husband's murderer's reprieve ? " 

"I have enough knowledge to be thoroughly convinced and to have 
signed the petition in consequence. Mr. Covert is a thoroughly respecta- 
ble and reliable gentleman, and so is Mr. Allen." 

" But," broke in the reporter, " Mr. Allen, when questioned about the 
matter by a reporter, seemed, to be very unwilling to substantiate the 
statements he so freely made before." 

"That seems to me very surprising, as it is notorious that Mr. Allen 
has courted publicity to his statements, and has made them very freely. 
The matter is no secret among us on the street, and it was on the assur- 
ance that it was true that we signed, the petition. I myself would like 
the Governor to know that the influences that were brought upon, the 
widow of the murdered man have been something more potent than mere 
sentimental ones. The idea of the petition originated from the articles 
in the papers a few days since,. which, after urging the Governor not to 
reprieve .Foster, ended by saying that of all the documents presented to 
him the only one of, any force or bearing was that in which the widow 
of the murdered man sued for the life of the murderer. We wished then 
to show that this, document, was not so strong and so disinterested as it 
appeared upon the surface, and that, seeing it was so paid for, no great 
amount of importance could be attached to it, as its only strength lay in 
its apparently pure-minded, disinterestedness. It now lies with the Gov- 
ernor, after we present the. petition, to say how much weight her letter 
must bring. All we wanted to. do. was to show the facts as they were." 

The reporter here left Mr. Stetson and called upon Mr. "VV. R. Preston, 
•at No. 27 West Forty-eighth Street: Mr. Preston was in bed, and the 
[reporter was shown up into his room. 




GOOD NEWS FOR THE PRISONER— GOV. DIX GRANTS A REPRIEVE. 
Sutt 9ta<fytid)t fur ten ®«fangcncn— Oouio.- $>t* fetpifttgte tituu Huff^mfr, 



LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 49 

When told about the petition Mr. Preston expressed the greatest reluc- 
tance to have his name identified with it. He said it was simply a peti- 
tion to the Governor and that it would not be published. 

"On what grounds did you sign the petition ?" asked the reporter. 

"Simply because I believed that the Governor had been unduly influ- 
enced by petitions and letters in favor of the prisoner. I thought that it 
was very well for him to consider the questions of law in the matter, bu 
not to go outside of these. If after Governor Dix looks over the case on 
ther.e questions of law, he comes to the conclusion that Foster had better 
be reprieved, I shall have nothing to say, but it was simply on these 
grounds that I signed the petition, and without any idea that it was to be 
made public." 

" You have, no doubt, observed the strong language of the petition 
you signed ? " said the reporter. " Thus, ' In consideration of the unholy 
means employed to defeat the ends of justice ; ' and again, J such as the 
corrupting influences of money have not touched.' " 

"This is very strong language," rejoined Mr. Preston, "very strong, 
and if I had noticed it when the petition was put before me I would not 
have signed." 

" Do you mean to say you signed them without looking over it ? " 

"I just cursorily glanced over it, you know, but did not take in its 
spirit." 

* You have heard of the charges which have been made about Mrs.- 
Putnam's name being paid for ? " 

"Yes, I have heard remarks of something of the kind, but I don't 
know anything about them." 

" And yet it is acknowledged that this is what the petition aimed at by 
using the language it does. Did you know that ? " 

" Well, as I tell you, I did not know or understand what the object of 
the petition was, and signed it on being asked to do so." 

"From whom did you hear that Mrs. Putnam had received money to 
sign her name to the letter to General Dix ? " 

" Oh I I heard it from several parties, and I believe from Mr. Allen, 
who is a relation of Mrs. Putnam." 

" And from no one else ? " 

" I am not sure from whom, but I heard it from several. But I did 
not know the petition meant all this." 

Mr. Preston said again he hoped his name would not appear to the pe- 
tition, and the reporter left. 

He then called upon Mr. F. W. Leggett, of the firm of A. W. & F. W. 
Leggett, produce dealers, whose names as a firm are signed to the petition. 

Mr. Leggett said that the petition was signed by his brother in the 
name of the firm, and that his brother knew more about it than he did. 

"You know, however, I presume," said the reporter, "what the peti- 
tion refers to ? " 
4 



50 LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 

11 Oh ! certainly," answered Mr. Leggett. " It refers to the fact of Mrs. 
Putnam having received money from the Foster family to sign her name 
to the letter." 

* What do you know of this transaction ? " 

" Mr. Blank, a wealthy man, was the person employed by the Foster 
side to negotiate the matter. Mrs. Putnam was then offered money to 
give her name to a letter asking Foster's reprieve. She went to Mr. 
Allen and asked his advice. I understand he advised her not to take the 
money, but if she were to do it to ask a good price. She asked if $15,000 
would be enough, and he said the family could as easily pay $25,000. I 
believe it was at this last interview that Mrs. Putnam allowed her name to 
he used, because she showed her disposition to take the money and dis- 
regarded Mr. Allen's advice to refuse it." 

" What do you think of Mrs. Putnam's action in this matter ? " 

" I think that very few women would do it, and I look on it as being 
rather queer of her to do. But then, on the other hand, she is poor, her 
husband's estate having been bankrupt at the time of his death." 

"Is Mr. Allen's course in the matter commented upon at all? " 

" There was no obligation upon him to keep the matter secret. In fact, 
I dare say, he thought it his duty to make it public. I look, on it this 
way, that while I think it my duty to let the Governor know the facts of 
the case, I do not care particularly to see Foster hanged. About that I 
shall be perfectly satisfied as the Governor decides." 

"But how is the Governor to know the circumstances of the affair? 
They are not given in the petition. They are simply hinted at." 

" Mr. Putnam's brother is to present the petition to the Governor, and 
while presenting will explain the whole matter to him about the paying 
money to Mrs. Foster for her name." 

"You know, then, that this money has been paid ? " 

" There is no doubt of it. Mr. Allen knows all about it, and so does 
Mr. Henneberger, the dead Mr. Putnam's former partner. In fact, they 
know a great deal more than I do about it. But the actual fact of buying 
is a matter now of too public notoriety to admit of any doubt." 

Mrs. Putnam, the widow of Foster's unfortunate victim, was very shy 
and reticent concerning the rumors that she received $15,000 for writing 
a letter to Governor Dix asking for a commutation of the death sentence 
of the condemned murderer. Her reticence, in fact, amounted almost to 
an admission that she was well paid for the use of her name to save the 
murderer from the scaffold. Since she has been in Providence with her 
father, Mr. Scott Smith, she kept herself aloof from all society, except her 
most intimate relatives and friends. 

It is but reasonable to suppose, from this conduct, that the stories of 
her having been paid well for writing the Governor Dix letter are essen- 
tially correct. If tbc^ were \lse it is probable that she would hasten to 
deny them. 



LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER 51 



A LETTER FROM WM. FOSTER'S FATHER. 

My Deae Sir : Permit me to contradict the report which appeared 
V& the papers of Thursday last, that the , sum of $15,000 had been 
paid to Mrs. Putnam for her letter to the Governor on behalf of my 
son, William Foster. I was out of the city on that day and only reached 
home late at night, hence my delay in making this denial. I am not 
aware that I ever saw Mrs. Putnam ; but I deny most positively that I 
have offered or paid her any sum whatever, and I do not know that any 
of my friends have offered or paid her anything for her letter. I believe 
the letter was prompted by the great kindness of her heart. 

Yery respectfully yours, John Foster, 

March 12, 1873. 218 East Eighteenth Street, City. 



MRS. PUTNAM'S DENIAL. 

Providence, R. I., March 12, 1873. 

Dear Sir : Will you allow me to correct the statement of yesterday's 
papers that I had received money for writing a letter to the Governor of 
New York asking the commutation of William Foster's sentence. The 
statement is wholly false. I have never received money nor have I been 
offered a bribe in any form. The letter was my own and expressed my 
honest feelings. 

Ellen L. Putnam. 

Sir : The statements in the daily press that Mrs. Putnam received a 
bribe from the friends of William Foster through me are not correct. I 
have not known or said I knew that she was paid any sum of money for 
her petition to tiie Governor for the commutation of Foster's sentence. 

March 14. William L. Allen, 

No. 67 Pearl Street, New York. 

JUDGE PIERREPONT ON THE CASE. 

To His Excellency, John A. Dix, Governor of the State of New York : 

Whether William Foster shall, within a few days, be put to death, in 
accordance with the judgment of the law, or whether his sentence shall 
be commuted to imprisonment for life, is the grave question presented to 
Your Excellency. 

The record of your past life assures the public that, when the caso 
■ shall have been fully examined, you will proceed to discharge your dutv, 
however painful, and that you will shrink from no just responsibility to 
escape the temporary censure of unjust criticism. 

. The highest tribunal in the State has decided that, upon the case pre- 
sented by the "Error Book," the conviction was not unlawful; and, in 
my judgment, the legal questions upon which that eminently just and 
able Court have passed are not open to review by Your Excellency. 
According to a promise made when you were in New York severa 



52 LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 

days ago, I have given the entire case the most careful investigation, and 
have brought to bear upon it the best judgment of which I am capable. 

THE PACTS. 

On the evening of April 26, 1871, Mr. Putnam, the deceased, was riding 
up town in a Broadway car, having under his care Mrs. Duval and her 
daughter. At Seventeenth Street William Foster, a total stranger to 
Mr. Putnam, stepped upon the forward platform of the car/alongside the 
driver. As they reached the Gilsey House, about Twenty- ninth Street, 
the daughter's attention was called to the new clock on the building, and 
she went to the forward door of the car to look at the clock, and Mrs. 
Duval went also to look at Helmbold's new store in the same building, 
and as Mrs. Duval sat down Foster, from the front platform, as she says, 
" looked in the window and sneered at my daughter and laughed." 

After this Foster opened the door several times and rudely looked in. 
Mr. Putnam went to the door and said : — "I will not allow these ladies 
to be insulted ; they are in my care, sir." Mr. Putnam, continuing his 
rebuke, went out upon the platform and closed the door behind him, and 
a warm altercation took place. Mr. Putnam returned into the car, and, 
soon after, Foster entered, and so behaved that the conductor came up 
and ordered Foster to sit down and be quiet. He took his seat, awl 
began " laughing and jeering." Mr. Putnam said : — " Had I known you 
were in liquor I would not have spoken to you," and turned his back 
upon him. Foster retorted by a vulgar threat of what he would do to 
Mr. Putnam when he left the car. 

The car soon reached Forty-sixth Street, and Mr. Putnam got out, and 
as he was assisting Mrs. Duval and her daughter to alight Foster struck 
him with a car hook upon his head, causing a wound of which he died 
three days after. Soon after this occurrence Foster admitted that he 
made the assault upon the deceased, but said " he guessed he did not hurt 
him much." 

Foster was arrested, at his own house, the same night, between two 
and three o'clock, with all his clothes on, and still beastly drunk. 

Within twenty days after Mr. Putnam died Foster was indicted by the 
Grand Jury, and put on trial before the petit jury for the crime of mur- 
der. The jury were out part of one day, all night and until half-past ten 
o'clock on the following morning, "when the jury rendered a verdict of 
murder in the first degree, with a recommendation to mercy." 

Judge Cardozo presided at the trial. The prisoner's counsel, Mr. Stuart, 
asked that the jury be polled. 

The jury was then polled, when each of the jurors answered in the 
affirmative that such was his verdict. 

Mr. Stuart — Before this jury is discharged, I ask the Court to inter- 
rogate them to this fact: Whether or no that verdict has not been 
arrived at upon a compromise and consultation, and upon the condition 
that a recommendation to mercy should be made ? 



LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 53 

The Court — I decline to poll the jury in any other way than the u/sual 
one. The verdict stands recorded. 

By our statute the crime of murder in the first degree is punishable 
with death. 

The crime of murder in the second degree may be expiated by suffer- 
ing imprisonment for ten years. 

The jury were well aware of this law. They did not believe that Fos- 
ter had " premeditated designs to effect the death " of Mr. Putnam ; they 
feared that if found guilty of murder in the second degree Foster would 
be pardoned after a short imprisonment and the ends of justice defeated ; 
and they were assured and believed that if the prisoner were found guilty 
of murder in the first degree the sentence of death would be commuted 
to imprisonment for life if a recommendation to mercy accompanied their 
verdict. Upon this theory they agreed upon their verdict, and, without 
/such, understanding, it is entirely clear that a verdict of guilty of murder 
in the first degree could not have been obtained. The jury believed that 
a verdict of murder in the second degree would bring a punishment quite 
too light for the crime committed. They knew that a verdict of murder 
in the first degree, which, involved a finding of " a premeditated design 
to effect the death" of Mr. Putnam, was not in accordance with their 
view of the facts in the case at all. But under the belief, and a lawyer's 
assurance, that a recommendation to mercy accompanying their verdict 
of murder in the first degree would necessarily result in imprisonment 
for life, they rendered the verdict which stands recorded. 

All doubt upon this question is now removed by the affidavits and 
statements of the jurors, which we will presently consider. 

Under the law there can be no such crime as murder in the first degree, 
unless it clearly appears beyond all reasonable doubt, that the homicide 
rt was perpetrated from a premeditated design to effect the death of the 
person killed." 

And in this case the Court laid down the law in these words 

* Before the jury can convict the prisoner of murder in the first degree 
they must find from the evidence that the prisoner had a specific, pre- 
moditated design to effect the death of the deceased ; that they must be 
able to say, beyond a reasonable doubt, that such was his specific 



"If the jury find that the prisoner, when he struck deceased, intended 
to inflict bodily harm upon deceased only, the death resulting from sucl 
assault does not amount in law to murder in the first degree.* 

"If the jury have a reasonable doubt derived from all the evidence as 
to what intent the prisoner had in assaulting deceased, they are bound 
to give the prisoner the benefit of that doubt and find the lesser 
intent." 

" To make out in this instance a case of murder in the first degree 
gae kind cf malice is essential, viz., a premeditated design to effect death ; 



54 LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 

no other species or quality of malice is sufficient, and this malice must ba 
proved, affirmatively, to have existed to the satisfaction of the jury 
beyond a reasonable doubt." 

" Whatever the intention of Foster in assaulting Putnam may have 
been, if it was not a premeditated design to take Putnam's life, it matters 
not how long the intention had been entertained, it does not constitute 
murder in the first degree." 

" " The fact that the prisoner came forward voluntarily, and gave his 
name as that of the unknown man who made the assault, is one proper 
for the jury to consider, as bearing upon the question whether he had 
an intention to make a fatal assault." 

Before the Court of Appeals nothing went but the simple record of the 
trial and the final verdict of the jury ; and the Cour* were asked to deter- 
mine whether any error in law had been committed on the trial, demand- 
ing a reversal of the judgment below. The Court found no such error, 
and its judgment is conclusive so far as the legal question** raised by the 
record are concerned. But outside the record, and since the record was 
made up, facts have come to light which, had they appeared upon the 
record, would certainly have reversed the judgment. It now appears 
beyond dispute, that the jury did not believe that Foster intended to kill 
Putnam at all — much less that the homicide u was perpetrated from a pre- 
meditated design to effect the death of the person killed ; and that the 
jury, after being out all night, agreed to bring in a verdict of murder in 
the first degree, with a recommendation to mercy, under the full belief 
that there was " no premeditated design to effect the death * of Mr. Put- 
nam, but under the influence of a credited assurance of one of their 
number, himself a lawyer, that such a verdict would necessarily carry 
with it the imprisonment for life of the accused- 
Suppose, when the jury came into Court for further instructions, after 
being out all night and unable to agree, they had asked the Judge whether, 
if the jury believed that when Foster struck Putnam, he had no premedi- 
tated design to effect the death of Putnam, but to cruelly beat him, they 
could, with that conviction on their minds, bring in a verdict of murder 
in the first degree, accompanied by a recommendation to mercy, which 
would result in Foster's imprisonment for life, and the Judge had said yes, 
and the verdict had followed, which was recorded in this case, it is entirely 
certain that the Court of Appeals would forthwith, upon such facts appear- 
ing upon the record, have pronounced the Verdict illegal. 
. Nothing of this kind was before the CourJ; of Appeals ; precisely this 
is before you. 

I append the affidavits and statements of the jurors, and of the Assis- 
tant District Attorney, who carefully watched the ' trial of the cause. 
These show, beyond all perad venture, that none of them, with the excep- 
tion of a single juror, believed that Foster, who had never seen tha 
deceased in his life until a few minutes before the fatal blow, committed 




FOSTERS LAST DAY ON EARTH. 



LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 57 

the act with "premeditated design to effect the death of the pers6*> 
killed." 

The Assistant District Attorney says : — 

" While I was Assistant District Attorney, I watched the trial and sub- 
sequent steps of this case with great interest; my opinion, formed from 
the evidense disclosed upon the trial, has never changed, and I have no 
hesitation in expressing it to you. I do not believe that there is one par- 
ticle of evidence to justify the belief that Foster premeditated or contem- 
plated murder — or, indeed, that he intended to take life." 

Mr. Samuel Dowding, one of the jurors, sWears : — 

" That deponent and Robert Usher, Jr., another of said jury, were firmly 
convinced, upon the evidence, that said poster never intended to kill de- 
ceased, Avery D. Putnam, for the murder of whom he was then on trial 
and only consented to the verdict rendered under the impression that the 
recommendation to mercy, which accompanied it, would necessitate the 
imposition upon said Foster of the punishment for murder in the second 
degree, to wit : imprisonment for life ; and that, if they had learned their 
error before the rendition of said verdict, they would never have consented 
to it ; that during such deliberation, deponent also asked George K. Chase, 
Walter F. Bartlett, and one or two others of said jurors, whose names do 
not now recur to deponent, whether, before God, they thought Foster in- 
tended to kill deceased, and they said they did not think so." 

Mr. Robert Usher, one of the jurors, says : — 

u In the jury-room I was, as I am now, of the opinion that the said de- 
fendant did not intend to kill the deceased, Avery D. Putnam, for whose 
murder he was then upon trial; and that, during such deliberation, I 
steadfastly adhered to the opinion that the defendant was not guilty of 
any greater crime than murder in the second degree ; that my opinion 
was shared with others of the said jury — Mr. Dowding and Mr. Chase 
being of the number ; that certain of the jury also said that they would 
find a verdict of murder in the second degree, if they did not feel that tie 
(Government was not to be trusted, and that said defendant would be par- 
doned out of State Prison, and be again let loose upon the community 5 
that, finally, it was represented by Mr. Rogers, one of the jurors, that he 
was a lawyer, and that a verdict of murder in the first degree, coupled 
with a recommendation to mercy, would ensure to said defendant a re- 
hearing of his case before the Governor, whereby the impression of myself 
and some of my fellow jurors, that a naked verdict of murder in the first 
degree would leave said defendant remediless, and necessarily result in hi& 
execution^ was removed, and the jury rendered the verdict of murder in 
the belief that Governor Hoffman would have an opportunity to correct 
and remedy any error they might in their ignorance of law commit" 

The decision of the Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of th« 
Court below, whereby William Foster was condemned to be hanged fW 
the murder of Avery D. Putnam. But that decision would have beeb 



58 LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. EOSTER. 

precisely the same if Mr. Putnam had appeared in Court and proved thai 
he was still alive and had only been spirited away by those who wanted 
to possess his estate. The Court of Appeals could only pass upon the 
record, and must have affirmed the condemnation to death of Foster for 
the murder of Putnam, who stood alive before them. The rigid rules of 
law do not allow an Appellate Court to look beyond the record, even 
though the Court might behold the living man for whose murder the 
accused was condemned to die. 

It is for this very reason, and to meet cases like the one before you, 
hat the high Executive is clothed with extraordinary powers adequate 
to correct all such mistakes and to consider all facts and circumstances 
outside of the legal record in furtherance of the highest justice and 
beyond the functions of a court of law. It is a well-known maxim that 
it were better that ninety-nine guilty men should en cape than that one 
innocent man should suffer; and also, that where a human life is in- 
volved, every doubt should be resolved in favor of the accused and of 
mercy. 

If William Foster is put to death for the premeditated murder of Mr. 
Putnam very few of the reflecting community will not believe that he 
was executed for a greater crime than he in fact committed, and to avoid the 
repetition of such an act of injustice the aggrieved sentiment of the public 
may demand the abolition of the death penalty entirely. 

Foster was convicted a few days after Mr. Putnam died, while the pub- 
lic mind was fevered and alarmed, and the verdict was not in accordance 
with the real convictions of the jury nor in harmony with any reasonable 
deductions from the evidence. 

• After a most careful examination of the whole case I am convinced 
that this drunken man, who had never seen the deceased until ten min- 
utes before he made the fatal assault, had no "premeditated design to 
effect the death of the person killed," and that in view of the mistaken 
ideas under which the jurors rendered their verdict it would be in further- 
ance of justice to commute the sentence of death to imprisonment for 
life. 

.. I approached this case with a prejudgment quite against the prisoner. 
Having read of the brutal assault and its circumstances the first impulse 
was to feel that Foster ought to be hanged; but when I came delibei- 
ately to consider the law and the subsequent revelations which the jurors 
bad made I became convinced that the hanging of Foster would savor 
.more of vengeance than of justice, in which no grains of mercy could be 
found, and the reaction likely to take place in the public mind might 
cause a repeal of those laws which are now a wholesale restraint upon 
«vil men. 

If Foster is imprisoned for life, public justice would be vindicated ;-. if 
lie is put to death for a crime greater than that of which he is guilty, it 
will be frv> late to retrieve the fearful wrong, and the intelligent public 



LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM, FOSTER. 59 

will not be satisfied with the execution. Even were it doubtful whether 
Foster struck the blow with a premeditated design to murder Mr. Put- 
nam, the doubt should, upon every principle known to the administration 
of civil justice, be resolved in favor of commuting the sentence of death 
to imprisonment for life. Very respectfully yours, 

Edwards Pierrepont. 

GOV. DIX'S REPLY TO THE SHERIFF. 

The following telegraphic correspondence passed between Sheriff Bren- 
nan, of New York City, and Governor Dix : — ■ 

Sheriff's Office, New York, March 19, 1873. 
Governor John A. Dix : 

Do you propose to send me a communication in reference to the case 
of Foster ? As time presses, please answer. 

M. T. Brennan, Sheriff 

Albany, March 19, 1873. 
M. T. Brennan, Sheriff New York City : 
I have no communication to make. 

John A. Dix. 

GOVERNOR JOHN A. DIX'S DECISION. 

HIS AUTOGRAPH LETTER TO REV. DR. TYNG. HE WOULD 
NOT ANNUL THE "DELIBERATE AND WELL-CONSIDERED 
DETERMINATIONS OF JURIES AND COURTS/' 

THE GOVERNOR REVIEWS THE EVIDENCE. 

State op New York, Executive Chamber,) 
Albany, March IT, 1813. j 

Reverend and Dear Sir : — I have given to the representations contained 
in your letter, my most earnest attention, and I have carefull} r examined all 
the testimony, the official papers, and all the statements which have been 
made to me in the case of William Foster, who lies under sentence of death 
for the crime of murder. 

In a recent case, not unlike his, I said I was willing to have it understood 
that circumstances of a very extraordinary nature would be needed to 
induce me to interpose for the purpose of annulling the deliberate and well- 
considered determinations of juries and courts. 

. I find no such circumstances attending the criminal act of Foster, his 
trial, the verdict or the decision of the courts, by which the record was 
reviewed. 

The public interest which has been and is still felt in this case,'the extra- 
ordinary efforts which have been made to procure a commutation of the sen- 
tence, the publicity given to these efforts, and the long period of time — now 
nearly two years — which has elapsed since the crime was committed, make 
it proper for me, before communicating to you my final decision, to state 
the circumstances and the considerations on which it is founded. 

Foster and Putnam, his victim, met in a railroad car in the city of New 
York. The latter had two ladies in his charge, and, in consequence of cer- 
tain annoyances by the former, remonstrated with him on his conduct. It 
does not appear that Putnam offered him any provocation: Foster, Who 



60 LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 

had been on the front platform, entered the car and sat down by Putnam, 
asking him several times how far he was going ; and when the latter declined 
to answer, and turned away, obviously desiring to avoid a controversy, 
Foster said, " Well, I am going as far as you go, and before you leave this 
car I will give you hell." 

He then returned to the front platform, and asked the driver if he had a 
car-hook, saying " he would learn him (meaning Putnam) his business when 
he gets off the car ; he would learn him to keep his place." When the car 
stopped, Foster seized the car-hook, telling the driver, who tried to stop 
him, to "go to hell," walked the whole length of the car on the outside, 
attacked Putnam, who had just got out, and struck him two blows on the 
head, one of which was fatal. 

They were together, after the first conversation between them, while the 
car was passing from the vicinity of Twenty-ninth street! to Forty-sixth 
street, not far from three-fourths of a mile, embracing too long a period of 
time to ascribe the criminal act to the sudden impulse of passion, or to 
exclude the presumption of premeditated design. The fatal blow was given 
with an iron rod, which was proved by the result to be a deadly weapon. It 
is more than two feet in length, having at one end a double coil of iron, from 
an inch and a quarter to an inch and a half in circumference, and is capable, 
in the hands of a man of ordinary strength, without any extraordinarj' effort, 
of fracturing the skall at every blow. Foster had been a conductor on one 
of these street cars ; he must have known the capacity for injury of the 
weapon he deliberately chose, and the jury might rightly presume that he 
intended to do what he took the most effectual means within his reach to 
accomplish. 

The murder was committed on the 26th of April, 1871; the trial began on 
the 22d of May ensuing ; the verdict was rendered on the 25th, the sentence 
passed on the 26th, and the 14th of July was fixed for his execution. Early 
in July application was made for a commutation of the sentence, and on the 
6th a writ of error was filed, and a stay of proceedings granted. On the 
21st of February, 1812, the judgment was affirmed at the General Term in 
the city of New York, and the 22d of March was fixed for the execution of 
the sentence. The application for a commutation was renewed, and was 
denied by my predecessor on the 4th of March. On the 11th of that month, 
a writ of en or to the Court of Appeals, with a stay of proceedings, was 
granted, and on the 21st of January, 1873, the judgment was affirmed by 
toe last-named tribunal. 

Thus it appears that all the remedies provided by law for contesting the 
rulings of the Judge before whom the trial took place, have been exhausted^ 
and that his action has been affirmed by the two judicial tribunals having 
cognizance of the case — the latter the court of last resort. 

The question presented to me is, whether I shall interpose the executive 
authority of the State, and commute the penalty of death, which the law 
awards to murder, for imprisonment for life. 

In support of the application, it is urged that the verdict was accompanied 
with a recommendation to mercy, and that it is the duty of the executive to 
eonsider the one as a part of the other. This is, no doubt, so far true that 
it should commend the case to his most careful and deliberate consideration. 
It is an appeal which he should recognize by reviewing all the circumstances, 
not only with a willingness, but with a desire to find in them a justification 
for the exercise of his clemency. There is no responsibility under the law 
on the part of juries in making such recommendations. On the other hand, 
the responsibility of the Executive in acting upon them is very delicate, 
whether they be considered in reference to the opinions of the jurors who 
make them, or to considerations of public policy, which, as a conservator of 
the good order of society, he is bound to regard in applications to mitigate 
penalties annexed bj the statute to crimes. My predecessor, no doubt 



LIFK, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER 61 

under the influence of such considerations, or from the belief that the crimi 
nals were justly condemned to death, refused, in three instances, to commute 
their sentences, although recommendations to mercy accompanied the ver- 
dicts. 

The application is supported on another ground, which is more embar* 
rassing, and which has been to me a source of great anxiety in coming to a 
right decision. A large majority of the jurors, part of them by affidavit, 
and others by written statements, declare that some of their number did not 
believe Foster intended to kill Putnam ; that they thought imprisonment 
for life as great a punishment as he deserved, and that they would not have 
agreed to render the verdict of murder in the first degree, involving the 
penalty of death, if they had not been assured by one of their associates, 
who professed to have a knowledge of the law, that such a verdict, accom- 
panied with a recommendation to mercy, would insure a commutation of the 
sentence. With two exceptions, these statements are all recent, and the two 
exceptions bear date more than ten months after the murder was committed. 
Two applications, as already stated, were made to my predecessor for a 
commutation of the sentence — one as late as March, 1812 ; and there is no 
evidence that any such statement was presented to him, nor is there any 
reference to one in his letter denying the latter application. 

It is a settled principle in this State, that ex parte affidavits or statements 
by jurors, impeaching the verdicts they have rendered under the responsi- 
bility of their oaths, will not be received by the Courts in support of appli- 
cations for new trials. Indeed, I believe it maybe stated as a rule far more 
widely accepted, that the Courts will not suffer a jury " to explain, by affi- 
davit, the grounds of their verdict, to show that they intended something 
different from what they found." Whether the rejection of such affidavits 
and statements be founded upon the belief that, by reason of the protracted 
deliberations of juries in many cases, and the differences of opinion to be 
reconciled in coming to the requisite unanimity, they could be easily pro- 
cured ; or whether they be rejected upon the ground that statements made 
under no responsibility cannot be permitted to overthrow adjudications 
made under the highest, it can hardly be doubted that they would tend, if 
admitted, to unsettle the administration of justice, and render executions 
under capital convictions nearly impossible. Some of the reasons which 
govern Courts in refusing to receive such statements in support of applica- 
tions for new trials ought, in my judgment, to govern the Executive in 
applications for the commutation of sentences. In the Judge's charge to 
the jury, he said : " Before you can convict the prisoner of murder in the 
first degree, you must be satisfied from the evidence, not only that Foster 
killed Putnam, but that he did so with a premeditated design to effect his 
death;" and he was thus convicted by the jury upon the responsibility of 
their oaths. Ought the same persons to be permitted, nearly two years 
afterwards, to show, by ex parte affidavits and statements, made under no 
legal responsibility, that their verdict was untrue ? 

The precedent of admitting after-revelations of the secret consultations 
of the jury-room, for the purpose of annulling verdicts rendered as true 
under the solemnity of an oath, would be perilous in any condition of 
society, and in the present defiant reign of crime, such a precedent would 
be fraught with infinite danger to the public order. 

Every proper appliance which wealth and the influence of a most esti- 
mable family could command, has been employed to save Foster from the 
scaffold. The case has been carried through the Courts by eminent counsel, 
the opinions of gentlemen learned in the law, and earnest applications from 
respected clergymen and citizens in good standing, have been brought 
before me, and the widow of the victim has come forth from her solitude to 
plead for the life of her husband's murderer. I have given to these appeals 
my moefc thoughtful consideration. If there were any reason to doubt that 



62 LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTEE. 

the law was rightly ruled at the trial, or that the evidence fully warranted 
the jury in rendering the verdict of murder in the first degree, I would give 
the criminal the benefit of that doubt. But with a firm conviction that there 
was no error in either, and that there is nothing in his case which can justly 
commend it to Executive clemency, I cannot interpose to mitigate his pun- 
ishment. 

I am pained to say this to 3 7 ou, appreciating as I do your sincerity, and 
the purity of your motives ; and I desire to announce my decision to your- 
self and the other respected clergymen who have joined in interceding for 
him, in the spirit of kind consideration due to those whose sacred vocation 
teaches them to look with tenderness upon the frailties of others. 

To the representations of the gentlemen in secular occupations, who 
have appealed to me in kis behalf, I have paid the same respectful consid- 
eration ; but I am constrained to think that they have neither given sufficient 
forethought to the consequences of what they ask, if it were granted, nor 
considered that, with the best intentions, we may, by misdirected sympathy, 
contribute, unconsciously, to endanger the public safety and our own. 

I am asked, in disregard of the evidence and the judgment of the highest 
judicial tribunal in the State on the law, to set aside the penalt}^ awarded 
to the most atrocious of crimes. It seems to me that the inevitable effect 
of such a proceeding on my part, under the circumstances of this case, 
would be to impair the force of judicial decisions, and to break down the 
harriers which the law has set up for the protection of human life. To this 
act of social disorganization, I cannot lend the executive authority confided 
to me by the people of the State. I deem it due to the good order of society, 
to say that, so far as depends on me, the supremacy of the law will be in- 
flexibly maintained, and that every man who strikes a murderous blow at 
the life of 'his fellow, must be made to feel that his own is in certain peril. 
If we cannot, by firmness of purpose, attain this end, we may soon be forced 
to acknowledge the disheartening truth that there is nothing so cheap or so 
ill-protected as human life. 

-I address this letter to you, because you were the first to apply to Gov- 
ernor Hoffman, and the first to apply to me for a commutation of Foster's 
sentence. It is sent in sincere sympathy with 3'ou, his early spiritual adviser, 
and with his afflicted famil}*, some of whom I know and hold in the highest 
esteem, but with the clear conviction that I am performing an imperative 
duty. 

I am, dear sir, with unfeigned respect and esteem, yours, 

JOHN A. DIX. 

Rev. Stephen H. Ttng, D. D. 

FOSTER IN THE TOMBS— VISITORS EXCLUDED FROM THE 

PRISON. 

Foster, the condemned murderer, passed a very quiet day, largely 
owing to the fact that there were so few visitors admitted to the Tombs. 
During his incarceration, Foster has never expressed any particular 
desire to take physical exercise of any sort, and the only relaxation he has 
enjoyed outside the narrow confines of his cell, has been an occasional walk 
in the corridor. During the past few days, however, he has been unable to 
enjoy even this slight privilege, in consequence of the very great influx of 
visitors, most of whom come to j^ape and wonder, and look sympathizingly 
at the doomed convict. For this reason, the Commissioners of Charities 
and Correction transmitted to Warden Johnston, instructions directing 
that during the week no visitors be permitted to the Toombs, except such 
as are authorized by the Sheriff, and by special pass from the Commis- 
sioners This is a very prudent and proper course, under the circumstances. 




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LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION" OF WM. FOSTER. 65 

William Foster was visited by his wife, his father, his brothers, and 
Rev. Dr. Tyng ; but all their interviews with the unhappy man were in the 
privacy of his cell. His general health is good, though Dr. ^"ealis reports 
the prisoner's appetite as failing to some extent. 



THE N ATIONAL CAPITAL SPEAKS-GOVBRNOR DIX SUSTAINED. 

Washington, D. C, March 16, 1873. 
Messrs. Barclay & Co. : — 

I have read your publications for years as a source of reliable intelli- 
gence, and a mirror of the public opinion. Your elevated stand against the 
atrocious car murder is approved here by all whose opinions are worth a 
straw. All the facts are familiar to your readers in this country and Europe. 
When first announced, the ferocious deed shocked the community, and every 
newspaper denounced it as a diabolical and unpardonable offence, amenable 
to swift condign punishment on the gallows. Prompt trial, condemnation 
and sentence followed. One tribunal after another, through all the forms 
of delay, confirmed the first just sentence. Meanwhile the Governor pro- 
claimed his firm resolve to enforce punishment in such cases, as examples 
to such murderers as of late had relied on pardons. This was deemed reli- 
able mercy to the public at large. 

Thus ended the first act of this deplorable New York domestic tragedy. 
But as the assassin claimed to be favorable to Sabbath schools, some of the 
ultra sticklers for church rights and reservations, forced a violent crusade 
against capital punishment generally, as established by law, and especially 
against the just punishment of this man. If he were a member of the church, 
so much the more reason for him to obey Holy Writ, and avoid murdering 
his fellow man. But he had rich relatives, and it was rumored that money 
was in the scheme of rescue, and that conspiring interlopers were ready to 
shell out liberally to rescue the culprit from the gallows, and we hear rumors 
of bribes for a petition to the Governor. Meanwhile, strange to say, " a 
change has come o'er the dream,'' and some of the citj* press, which were 
first so rampant to condemn and hang, are now for commutation and final 
escape in one of the most diabolical cases on record. Bah ! 

Whether any bribe was actually advanced, cash in hand, I express no opin- 
ion. Promises may have proved availing. Be this as it ma}', high crimes must 
not be compounded by parties interested. Murder must not be expunged 
for pelf by persons injured. Hanging is neither executed nor prevented for 
the accommodation of private persons, however great the reward, but en- 
forced for the public safety. If wealthy relatives are to have sway with 
magistrates, the tribunals will be trampled in the dust, and what then will 
become of the State and the dignity thereof? The Governor has but one 
straighforward course to pursue and sustain the tribunals. He should in- 
dignantly cast behind him all personal and outside considerations, as did 
the immortal patriot, Lucius Junius Brutus, when he condemned his own 
son to death for the safety of Rome. Here is a memorable precedent for the 
adoption of the Governor in enforcing condign punishment on an offender 
doomed to death by all the tribunals. 

Old Subscriber. 



THE GOVEENOB POINTS THE LUTE OF DUTY. 

We have a Roman in our midst. Viewed by the aid of General Dix's 
refusal to commute the sentence of Foster, the action of Brutus in striking 
do^i his friend is robbed of a suspected selfishness, and indubitably stamped 
with patriotism. Whoever has had a wavering, imperfect notion of duty 
before, le* him contemplate this action of General Dix, and he will view it 
5 



m LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OP WM. FOSTER. 

in all its crystalline beauty, "unmixed with baser matter." Look at the 
grandeur of the picture ! A grief-stricken father begs for the life of a son 
from another father with power to grant the prayer, whose venerable head 
is at that veiy moment bowed in agony over the death of his own son, and 
is refused. Truly, the maxim, " Let justice be done though the heavens 
fall," no longer obsolete, has been electrified into new life ; and let all the 
people good and true rejoice thereat. In consideration, therefore, of his 
incalculable services to the nation in times of peace and war, and with all 
the proper humility of a private citizen, I nominate General John A. Dix 
for President of the United States. S. H. T 

New York, March 15, 1873. 



THE GOVERNOR'S ACTION APPLAUDED. 

I trembled in fear tha' our Governor would not do his duty in the Foster 
case. As a lover of justice, and hater of all maudlin sentiment, I breathe 
freely again. John A. Dix has proved himself to be a man ; would he were 
forty years younger. Cannot the public have an opportunity of rc-endors- 
ing him at the Cooper Institute, or some other place, and express its opinion 
on this and other kindred topics freely ? Lex. 



THE RELIGIOUS PRESS AND ITS TOPICS. 

Our religious contemporaries did not appear to be inspired during 
March with any general or striking topic of discussion, although the 
Foster case naturally furnished a text for comment in the columns of some 
of them. Their tone collectively on the subject may be regarded as in 
favor of allowing the law to take its course. 

The Golden Age argues that a nine-tenths of all the murders which have 
been brought to the notice of the newspapers, during the last five years 
have been the result of just as little motive — of just as little pre-intent to 
kill — as in this case " of Foster. The Age proceeds : 

" In other words, they have been the rash acts of drunken men who, in 
their brawls and under the semi-insanity which liquor produces in a heated 
brain, have struck blows with the same blind, brutal, unreasoning strength 
which led Dr. Tyng's Sunday school scholar to kill a citizen without de- 
liberately meaning to do it. If Foster justly escapes the gallows (and it 
is just that he should), then the large proportion of his fellow criminals 
should escape with him. There is equal justice on their side. His case 
differs from the majority of murders only in the fact that most criminals 
do not sin against such light as Dr. Tyng's religious instructions furnish, 
and therefore do not bring upon themselves so high a degree of moral 
condemnation for their crime." 

The Age profoundly hopes that Foster's case, which it regards as a fair 
and average type of manslaughter, neither better nor worse than the ma- 
jority of instances, may lead a humane community to consider the. wisdom 
of commuting, by law, the death penalty to life imprisonment. 

The Independent declares it is not thirsting for blood, but it protests 
against that sentimentalism in behalf of individuals which jeopards the 
safety of the community by its reluctance to inflict penalty. It does not 
believe f ta be wiser than the Courts that have already declared Foster 



LIFE, TEIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 67 

*riilty of murder in the first degree. u There is no use of capital con- 
victions at all," concludes the Independent, "if they are to be rendered 
abortive by gubernatorial clemency. The kw that fails when it comes 
to the crisis of execution is simply a sham, and the public sentiment that 
tolerates such shams greatly needs reforming." 

The National Baptist sums up a review of the Foster case by remarking 
that "it is not on the ground of vengeance; it is not as an act of satis- 
faction to the ghost of the murdered man ; it is simply from a regard for 
the welfare of the living, from a regard for the safety and happiness of 
the millions of innocent citizens, that we express our most earnest hope 
that the Governor will let the law take its course." 

The Freeman's Journal (Catholic organ) has its death grip on the con- 
demned Foster and the Rev. Dr. Tyng, and smashes away generally about 
car hooks and iron rods. In an editorial leader it accuses the Rev. 
Dr. Stephen H. Tyng of a " very gross indecency," says that clergyman 
has just "added a new feather to the tar surface with which his old 
reputation is besmeared," in having the execrable taste " to inform Go- 
vernor Dix that the family of the convicted are all members of our one 
household of faith." Suppose, suggests the Journal, that 

"In place of John A. Dix it had been Francis Kernan that had been 
elected Governor. Suppose it bacbbeen some poor wretch who had been 
a Catholic, whose life was trembling in the scales of executive judgment! 
And suppose some Catholic pastor had ventured the bold indecency of 
this Dr. Tyng to Governor Dix, and reminded Governor Kernan that the 
man whose case was before him, to be decided on principles of law, was 
one of a family who 'are all members of our one household of faith.' 
We are very certain that such a letter would not have weighed a feather, 
either for or against the legal merits of a case for executive clemency: 
but, if we could suppose so gross an impropriety on the part of a Catholic 
priest, we think Mr. Kernan would not have suffered such an improper 
appeal to have passed without a rebuke to its author as public as the 
offence." 

The Journal also publishes the following advertisement extraordinary, 
under the heading " Car Hooks Wanted " : — 

"Wanted — Iron rods, well wrought and not liable to snap — regulation 
length of dress sword, thirty-nine and a half inches. A large supply will 
be required as soon as the order for them is sanctioned by Governor Dix. 
After Governor Dix's approval they will present the following advantages: 
First, except in the hands of an expert swordsman, a car hook will be 
much more effective than a rapier. The sword requires its handler to 
know how to deliver its edge or its point; but a car hook is edge all 
round! Second, by suprajudicial argumentation through hired journals 
and feed lawyers, the car hook is declared not to be a deadly weapon! 
The advantage of this point, for men -hunters, is not to be overlooked. 
Persons ready to supply in large quantities will please apply to Rev. 
Stephen H. Tyng — and look for his address in the New York Directory." 

The Journal is no King Charles spaniel — not it. But it does dislike 
the unfortunate Rev. Mr. Tyng — there is no mistake about that. 

The Jewish Messenger descants upon " Meicy for the Merciless " and 



68 LIFE, TEIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 

affirms that "the safety of the people depends upon justice being sternly 
rendered the men who resort to violence, and who are the natural enemies 
of decency, order and quiet." 

THE DECISION OP GOVERNOR DIX— "LAW AND ORDER MUST 
PREVAIL, COST WHAT IT MAY." 

From the broad differences of opinion on the matter among the press 
previous to the final death decree, it might have been expected that the 
'Tovernor's determination not to interfere with the execution would have 
roduced a variety of comment. A unanimous acquiescence in its justice 
s, instead, seen everywhere. To the inflexible Governor this must be 
especially gratifying. It is a recognition of the highest conscientiousness 
and fidelity to duty in one of the most painful positions wherein the 
Executive of a State ever found nimself. The care and intelligence he 
brought to bear upon the subject, and his firmness in resisting all extra- 
neous appeals when once his convictions were formed, will elevate him 
higher in the estimation of his friends, whdle equally commanding the 
respect of his bitterest enemies. 

We are rejoiced to observe this unanimity among the press. It indi- 
cates a healthy tone in those who do so much to control and direct public 
opinion. To read the utterances of s<5me journals a few days ago beside 
those made since the decision will show how powerful a lesson can be 
learned from a single action performed by a man placed under such awful 
responsibilities as General Dix. Among the best authorities on law in 
the State the Governor's decision has produced the same impression that 
it has made upon the general public. The members of the Constitutional 
Convention remaining in Albany called upon the Governor yesterday and 
congratulated him upon the sound logic in law and equity which enabled 
him to clear the subject of its mists and decide it on its merits alone. 
But the Governor, in face of all this expression of lay and professional 
approval, still preserves his dignified attitude of an unimpassioned Judge 
of the last resort. To a correspondent he made an explanation of his 
course, whose words will stand out in flaming letters beside the apophthegm 
which became so famous during the civil war. They should be graven 
on the minds of the criminal classes. To the law-abiding citizen they 
will be a stern promise of justice when crime attempts to spread its bale- 
ful sway. He said: " I made the decision I have made utterly regardless 
of the clamors and so-called influences which have been brought to bear 
to secure the commutation of the sentence of the prisoner. 1 have looked 
upon the case and decided upon it after the most careful study and de- 
liberation, solely on its merits. Law and order must prevail, cost what it 
may. The position of Governor often puts upon him duties that are hard 
to perform — sad duties ; but for all that they are duties from which he 
cannot shrink. I will not shrink from them." These are noble, fearless 
words, and they are the death-knell of the hopes that count on the majesty 



LIFE, TRIAL. AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER 69 

of the law in matters of human life being destroyed by a mistaken lenity, 
The promise that "law and order must prevail, cost what it may," is, we 
believe, certain to be kept while it lies in such hands. 

To this decision we can point for our justification in the unflinching 
course of demanding justice upon the murderers who have made life so 
unsafe in our cities, and whose long impunity has lowered the respect for 
law in what should be its most impressive forms. We feel pity for the 
family of the wretched being condemned to an ignominious death. Their 
sufferings, as well as his own, are the sad but necessary consequences of 
his reckless disregard of what pain and suffering his crime would cause 
to the victim and his near and dear ones. This branching out of the 
penalty of murder radiates not merely from the murderer, but from the 
victim. The family of the homicide, in addition to acute grief for the 
degrading doom of one they love, feels itself crushed under a sense of 
shame, which, however illogical, will assert itself. To the family of the 
victim, outside of the anguish caused by his murder, there is another cause 
of grief to which the world does not give sufficient weight. It must stand 
by in silent sorrow while every little action of the dead man's life is pa- 
raded, while every fault or blemish in his character is made rich matter 
for lawyers in court to wrangle over. The dead man and his family are 
put on trial almost as much as the murderer, no matter how much victim 
and murderer may have been strangers before the fatal meeting. The 
"skeleton in the closet" which the family had in decency and resignation 
kept carefully hidden is dragged out before the ruthless world. It is the 
innocent family must bear the finger pointing and shameful burden, when 
the dead man might say : — <f 

Cut off, even in the blossoms of my sin, 
No reck'ning made, but sent to my account 
With all my imperfections on my head. 

It is an inexorable law that " breaking into man's bloody house n 
entails pitiable suffering to those free from every stain of the sin. Per- 
haps the strongest words that can be used in sympathy with those whose 
heartstrings have been wrung by the Governor's decision is where he 
says : M The shame was in the commission of the crime and not in its 
punishment." It is one of the bad signs in a civilization when being the 
relative of a man who lawlessly took life is accounted a small thing be- 
side being the relative of a man hanged for the crime. If the law wer • 
more certain in its action there ,vould soon be an end to this distinction. 
A3 the law now stands there is a good deal to keep alive this distinction 
in the long delays, the variety of appeals that can be made, and the un- 
certainty that makes condign punishment seem small among the chances. 
It has been our duty to lay aside elements of pity that have no right in 
such cases, and where crime has been committed to advocate even, swift, 
anerring justice. This has been our guiding principle in the painful and 
thankless discussion which has been ended by the decision of Governor 



70 LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 

Bix. No other consideration in the honest discharge of duty should be 
of a feather's weight. 

The subject before us calls to mind that we have other murderers yet 
to deal with. Murder runs in classes of infamy as well as being accom- 
plished by a variety of means. The reckless, drunken murder has its 
companion in the cool and calculating murder. There is the murderer 
of passion, the stealthy, poisoning murderer, the murder in a tavern 
r brawl, the wife murderer, the murder of one desperado by another, the 
murder by a woman. The classes might be largely increased beyond 
these even by a visit to the Tombs. It is a curious thing that every one 
of them finds its apologists, under one form or another, among men who 
themselves may abhor the idea of blood. Stokes has his apologists 
among men who hated the viciousness of the man he slew. Magruder 
would find apologists by the score south of Mason and Dixon's line or 
west of the Missouri, because he warned his victim one day that he 
would shoot him the next. The very thing which will go to convict him 
of murder with brutal premeditation here would bring a triumphant ac- 
quittal in the backwoods. Sharkey would never be molested there, be- 
cause he shot his man in front of a bar. Simmons, whose ferocity led 
him to plunge the knife again and again into his victim, will find people 
to say that it was a policy man he killed, and that it is excusable because 
there was a struggle, and because Simmons was also a policy man — dog 
eat dog. King will, perhaps, find people to believe he should not be 
hanged, because a pistol was found in the pocket of the man he shot 
from behind. Scannell, who made one attempt on the life of Donohoe 
before he finally killed \qm, and furnished himself with the heaviest pistol 
he could find, to make sure of his work, has had jurors who believed 
that these things were, with a few others, proof of insanity. Even Nixon 
would find apologists among the class who believed that the world and 
its roads were made for them alone. Around the murderess, and some- 
times — strange contradiction — the wife-murderer, the greatest amount of 
shallow sentimentality is thrown. The name of woman alone inspires 
the first; the suspicion of a husband being wronged is held to palliate 
the second. All these apologies are of the flimsiest ; but their being 
brought forward can be foretold with certainty as soon as the blood of 
the victim has been spilled. We cannot purify the atmosphere of society 
of its murder elements by using an absorbent on only one order of 
noxiousness. The rich murderer as well as the poor, the influential mur- 
derer as well as the unknown outcast, the deliberate and the plotting 
murderer as well as the hasty, the infuriate or the drunken, must all be 
treated alike. 

"If juries will only do their duty," said a Senator to a friend, 
"murder must bow its head." We want fearless juries, as well as an 
unshrinking Executive. These can give society a gauge of security by 
the conviction of the criminal While such Governors as General Dix 




NO HOPE ! GOV. DIX HAS DECIDED THAT YOU SUFFER THE DEATH PENALTY !'" 
„&eim ^offnung? ®otm* ©i* hat bstfhlotfm, 6a§ ©If tie %ot>s§(tvafe crtefom." 



LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 73 

are in the gubernatorial chair we may rely on stubborn justice being 
wrought out. He has pledged himself to it, and has given us a telling 
instance that he can be trusted to keep his word. 

THE SCIENCE OP STRANGULATION. 

Str: — Now thaj; an unhappy man is by the laws of the land doomed 
to die — and others may soon be expected to follow him in his wretched 
fate — I beg, on the score of humanity, that you and other members of the 
press raise your voices — if it be not too late — against the hideous and 
torturing process of putting criminals to death by the brutal process of 
elevating or "jerking " them up, instead of precipitating them down* by the 
far more certain and humane method of the "drop." lam not one of 
those who entertain any morbid sympathy for such men ; and though 
disposed to admit that there is much truth in the aphorism that you may 
put a man to much more useful purpose than hanging him, I am yet 
in favor of the old Judaic maxim of holding life responsible for ;he 
destruction of life; and unless the penalty can be commuted to perpetual 
imprisonment (with, in brutal or aggravated cases, an occasional flogging), 
I still am of opinion that the death punishment should be retained fo* 
the safety of society and the impressive warning of those who dread no 
other species of retribution, but are yet sensible to the power of the dread 
king of all earthly terrors. But, waiving the discussion of this point, and 
without in any degree believing that criminals should be chloroformed or 
drugged to render them unconscious to the last sufferings which the law 
imposes, I think that they ought not to be subjected to needless agony, 
and it is in consequence of this belief that I now address you. 

In the course of a life now extended over half a century, and in con- 
nection with the press for fully forty years, in all quarters of the globe, 
It has been my painful lot often to witness executions in almost every 
mode and in most of existing countries, in the old world as well as in the 
new, on the other side of the equinoctial line as well as on this; and I 
state without hesitation or exaggeration that, excepting the frightful Syrian- 
(and occasionally Arabian) atrocity of impolement, I have never seen 
any at once so brutal and so torturing as the foul "jerking" style pur- 
sued in this city. The Spanish garrotiug mode appears to me to be the 
least painful and most effective, as the vertebrae and nerves of the neck 
are instantly crushed by it, though the French guillotine may, perhaps, 
be preferred by many, albeit, reasoning from analogy, as in the instance 
of the fly, some highly scientific men are disposed to believe the vitality- 
may yet remain in both body and head after the connexion is severed. 
The military system of finishing an execution by discharging a pistol 
through the ears is perhaps the best of all; but in a nation like this, 
inheriting many of its customs and more of its brutalities, from the 
English, there is a prejudice against the effusion of blood, and the prefer- 
ence appear* to be still given to the old and barbarous operation of sus- 



74 LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 

pending a man between heaven and earth, as if he were unworthy of 
either. 

But while this mode of "hanging" exists, I hold it should be accom- 
plished without needless torture. I would, therefore, recommend that, in 
the event of an approaching execution, the gibbet should be constructed 
on the principle of the fall, instead of the hoist. Some time ago, in 
Australia, I saw three criminals dropped from a height of six feet, and 
with the exception of a slight and momentary convulsion of the fingers 
b/ one, none of them ever moved a muscle. The necks of all were dis- 
located, and, as I subsequently ascertained on dissection, the cervical 
bones, or vertebrae, were actually torn asunder. The operation was super- 
intended by the colonial surgeon, who suggested to the executioner the 
proper method of fixing the noose so that the neck might to a certainty 
be dislocated. The gentleman who discharged that duty was an old 
fellow-pupil with myself of Liston, the celebrated Scotch surgeon, forty- 
five years ago, and he performed his painful task with strictly scientific 
ability. The bodies were allowed to remain suspended for half an hour, 
until all vestiges of life must have been effectually extinguished, and even 
then he only felt their pulses and placed his hand across their hearts to 
see that both had entirely ceased to beat before the bodies were lowered 
down. There was no such disgusting spectacle as I witnessed on the 
occasion of the last execution in the Tombs, as the revolting sight of a 
brutal ex-assistant coroner ordering the body to be lowered within a few 
minutes of its elevation, in order that he, and some other callous pro- 
fessional friends, invited for the purpose, might place their ear to the 
breast of the unhappy victim, while his hands were still convulsed with 
the agonies of death — conduct more revolting, if possible, than that of 
the London sheriffs and aldermen, who, on the occasion of an execution, 
invariably retire to a costly breakfast in the interior of the jail on the fall 
of the drop, and there gormandize like hogs for an hour, on the expir- 
ing of which the victim is cut down, when, of course, completely dead. 

But even if too late to construct a new gibbet on the principle of the 
drop, some improvement highly desirable might be effected in the present 
system of the "jerk;" and I would suggest that the jail doctor should be 
enjoined to instruct the executioner in the art of applying the noose so 
that the neck may at once be dislocated with certainty, and the culprit 
thus saved from agony prolonged. 

I have the honor to be, etc., 

D. Wemyss Jobson, M. R. C. S. K 
8 Clinton place, New York, March 18, 1873. 

THE LAST DAYS OF FOSTER. 

Deputy Sheriffs Burns and Kcehler assumed charge of Foster on 
Thursday morning at seven o'clock, relieving Deputies Glennon and Pat- 
terson who had the night watch. No change was visible in the appear- 



LIFE, TEIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 75 

ance of Foster. He said little to his keeper, and talked but little to his 
wife. More than fifty persons, men, women, and boys, gathered near the 
entrance to the Tombs at the time of opening the doors for visitors. 
They seemed to have no well defined object, and were evidently drawn 
thither by a morbid curiosity. When ordered to move on by a police- 
man, they would scatter before him, and some would leave, but their 
places were immediately taken by others. They were of all classes, but 
most of them were shabbily dressed and wore the shiftless look of habi- 
tual idlers. If a person came out of the prison, he was attentively eyed, 
and if he stopped to speak to a friend or to an officer, he was at once 
surrounded by a crowd of boys and men. 

In the Tombs the affidavit of the seven jurors which was sent to Gov- 
ernor Dix was the common topic of conversation, and variously commented 
on. A majority of the keepers, as \vo»ld bo expected, expressed much 
sympathy for Foster, though no hope for him was entertained by them. 

WHERE THE GALLOWS IS KEPT. 

V There it is, right through there/' said an aged habilue of the Tombs 
Police Court, pointing up to the northeast corner of that building. The 
officers pretend to keep its whereabouts a secret from merely morbid 
inquirers, but everybody knows just where it is. The loft of the Centre 
and Franklin Streets corner of the Tombs is used as a lumber room, and 
there, up against the north side, lies a pile of stout, dull blue timbers and 
braces. They have lain there since the execution of Eogers in Brooklyn. 
"They have often been lent to the sheriffs of other counties, and were last 
used in the Tombs yard for the execution of the negro, Thomas, two 
years ago. They were taken out, and the inmates of the cells could hear 
the dreadful sound of the hammer. Well might the other murderers, 
confined within those walls tremble. Stokes, the assassin of Fisk, 
although outwardly exhibiting no signs of fear nor concern, evidently did 
not enjoy the sounds which reached his ears, as nail by nail was driven 
into the awful instrument of death, where he, before long, might be 
.called to pay the penalty of his crime. 

It did not take long to put the timbers together, for they have often 
been joined before, but it was necessary that there should be no lack of 
preparation, that the work should be done at once. Soon, very soon, the 
gallows, that one awful evidence of our slow approach to actual civiliza- 
tion, feared its terrible, demoniac shape toward the sky, its very self a 
reproach to Christianity, a mockery of all Christlike teachings. Ven- 
geance is mine, saith the Lord, and 1 will repay. The terrible man-slay er, 
with its seeming ghost-like arms outstretched, as if 'twere reaching' eagerly 
for its victim. Its timbers, which already had supported many a faltering 
wretch in his trembling walk, only to end in one awful leap into eternity, 
seemed to creak and groan in very despair at the work assigned them. 
The ,u ind howled, and shrieked, as so many demons rejoicing at a feast 



76 LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 

of blood. One could imagine a monotonous repetition of those worda, 
** Hanged by the neck — banged by the neck — till you are dead — are 
dead. And may God have mercy — have mercy on your soul." 

THE APPEAL OP THE SEVEN JURORS. 

The following extraordinary paper was laid before John A. Dix, Gov- 
ernor of the State of New York, March 17, 1873 : 

The People agL Willi xm Foster — City and County of New York: — We do 
solemnly swear that we were jurors in the case of William Foster; that 
the conviction in his case could never have been obtained but for the 
opinion which prevailed among the jurors that their unanimous recom- 
mendation to mercy would ensure the commutation of the sentence to 
imprisonment for life. This terrible mistake cannot be remedied now 
except by the Governor. We would do it if we had the power, but we 
have not. We earnestly appeal to you, therefore — the only person who 
can do it — to prevent a man from being put to death through an error of 
opinion on our part at the time of the trial. In doing tins we do all we 
can .to wash our hands of Foster's blood, and we humcly assure your 
Excellency that if the sentence be carried into effect, in view of the 
circumstances which we now, under oath, lay before you, we shall never 
cease to look upon it as an unjust punishment, which was not contem- 
plated by the jury in rendering the verdict. 

Sworn to this 15th clay of March, 1873, before me, Adam Gos, Notary 
Public, New York County. (Signed) F. E. Hoagland, R. T. Martin, Samuel 
Dowding, Henry Leo, George K. Chase, James Daniel, H. C. Rogers. 

The Governor said that he would give the document his most careful 
consideration. 

AN INTERVIEW WITH STOKES. 

Our reporter visited the Tombs, and failing to obtain an interview with 
Foster, as a last resource toward obtaining news of some kind, concluded 
to have a talk with the gay, iron-nerved Stokes. Mr. Stokes appeared to 
command an excellent flow of spirits, and graciously condescended to be 
interviewed. 

Reporter. — "Well, Mr. Stokes, they are going to hang poor Foster." 

Stokes. — "Yes, poor fellow, they'll hang him. I deeply sympathize 
with his wife and relatives, but public necessity demands his execution. 
You see we must have some protection for our wives, when they ride in 
public vehicles." 

And thus did the gentleman converse. Our reporter left soon after, 
fully convinced that he had much to learn of human nature. 

(±V. B. — The publishers of this work have also issued, " The Life, Trial, 
and Conviction of E. S. Stokes," for the assassination of James Fisk, Jr. 
Et contains many illustrations, and is perfectly authentic. It will be mailed 
U ^ny address on -eceipt of price — 30 cents.) 



LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER 77 

SIGHT. 

A member of the Bar Association has proposed that two-thirds of the 
persons composing a jury (excepting in capital cases) shall be competent 
to return a verdict, no matter what opinion the minority may hold. We 
have for years advocated a reform of this kind in the j ury system. We 
agree to the proposition excepting as to the exception in capital cases. 
The proposed rule would and should apply to those cases. Where a jury 
has to consider the question of depriving an individual of either life or 
liberty the majority should be competent, by law, to render a verdict. 
The good effect of such a regulation is obvious. Under it a bribe would 
have to be divided among several people, or be worthless. Now, it is 
necessary to buy but one juror to defeat justice. One obstinate or deter- 
mined villain, who creeps into a jury,jnay stultify his eleven honest and 
intelligent compeers. Outside of this view of the case, it is manifestly 
absurd to force a dozen men to be of the same opinion. Any case so 
clear that it does not require deliberation or argument in the jury room, 
and can be settled without the jury leaving their seats, does ^iot need to 
be tried ; nor is such a case often tried, the culprit generally pleading 
guilty. We trust that proper steps will be forthwith taken to bring this 
subject to a just course of treatment, and secure to the community a re- 
form for which justice, decency and the public safety are crying aloud 
and incessantly. 

FOSTER'S ATTEMPT AT SUICIDE. 

An official connected with the Tombs tells the following story : 
At 8J o'clock Friday morning, Miss Flora Foster, the matron of the 
prison, entered the cell occupied by the condemned man for the purpose 
of bringing him a cup of warm coffee. Foster was lying apparently sense- 
less on the pallet, when the matron shook him and asked him to get up. 
Foster seemed to be in a stupor, and did not make the slightest movement 
or recognition of the summons, being evidently unconscious. Miss Foster 
again shook the prisoner, and said, " What's the matter with you? " Foster 
mumbled in reply, " I'm very sick." The matron at once suspected that 
something wrong had happened, and exclaimed : " Oh, you wretched man, 
what have you been doing? What have you taken ? " Foster partially 
raised himself as he reclined on the bed, and replied in a weak voice : 
" I have taken poison, Dr. Tyng told me not to, but I did." 

The matron became quite alarmed and said, " Oh, take this," at the same 
time forcing the rim of the cup between the prisoner's teeth and pouring 
the contents down his throat. This caused immediate nausea, and the 
unfortunate man began to vomit. Seeing this Miss Foster ran intr the 
female prison, and filling a cup with strong, black coffee, carried it back 
and gave it to the condemned prisoner. This produced more nausea, when 
Miss Foster, fearing that the prisoner was dying, informed Keeper Matthew 
Daley of the fact that Foster had poisoned himsel£ 



78 LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 

Mr. Daley, though greatly astonished at the intelligence, at once rushed 
into the condemned cell, and pulling Foster out into the corridor, bathed 
his head with ice-water, and walked him rapidly up and down the corridor. 
Dr. Nealis, the physician attached to the Tombs, was at the same time sent 
for by Keeper Daley. All this time the Deputy Sheriffs — Hanbury and 
Seebacker — who had held custody over Foster during the night, were un- 
aware of the facts, though the startling news had, in some manner, become 
known to Scannell, Sharkey and King, who are confined in the tier just 
above the condemned cells. 

On the arrival of Dr. Nealis he at once entered Foster's cell, and in- 
quired of the prisoner, " What is the matter with you ? A/e you sick ? " 
Foster in a faint voice and uncertain way, said, "I am very nervous." 
Dr. Nealis then noticed a peculiar appearance about the condemned man 
Foster's face presented the dull yellow aspect only noticeable in opium 
poisoning. His eyes were glassy and firmly set, and his hands were 
tremulous and wavering. Struck by the marked predominance of these 
peculiar symptoms, Dr. Nealis, returning to the corridor, asked Keeper 
Daley, "Can it be possible that this man has taken poison ? I think he 
has!" "Yes," replied the keeper, "he told me so." It was then almost 
8f o'clock, and Dr. Nealis, re-entering the cell, shook Foster by the 
shoulder. 

At that moment Sheriff Brennan entered the corridor with his deputies, 
Mr. Brennan advancing alone to the cell door. He at once perceived that 
Foster was not in the condition he ought to have been in, so said to Dr. 
Nealis, u Is this man fit to go out into the yard now ? " Dr. Nealis, readily 
comprehending what was in the Sheriff's mind, replied, "He is if he is 
carried out right away." The Sheriff at once signified his intention to 
hasten the proceedings, as already stated, and Foster was at once pinioned 
and made ready for execution. The prisoner was even then so weak that 
Sheriff Brennan and Under Sheriff Stevens had to actually lift him out 
of the cell into the corridor. They then almost carried him to the entrance, 
and supported him to the gallows, as previously described. While the 
spectators thought that the duration of the religious exercises were telling 
on Foster's nerves, it was in reality the weakness caused by the poison act- 
ing upon his system. When the rope was cut he was really dying. 

The opinion of Dr. Nealis is that if the execution had been delayed 
until 10 o'clock, the hour originally fixed by the Sheriff, Foster would 
have died in his cell from poison taken by himself for that purpose. It 
is not known why these facts were concealed. 

It is denied as strenuously in some official quarters as it is asserted 
positively in others, that this attempt was made. 




g 

w » 
M § 

H ? 



88 



LIFE, TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 81 



THE EXECUTION. 

On Friday morning, before eight o'clock, it was announced that the 
doomed man was awake and dressing. A few minutes past eight, a heavy, 
regular tramp was heard, and 150 policemen filed into the prison in charge 
of Superintendent Kelso. It was a still, wearisome time waiting there, 
with the crowd of pass-holders swelling, and in a mass crushing each other 
for precedence, so that the police were obliged to interfere and maintain 
decorum, in appearance, at least. Foster, at this time, had risen and 
dressed. He had slept soundly for about four hours and three-quarters ; 
for nature asserted her demand for recuperation of the forces that the 
strain upon the deepest emotions known to pitiable man had wasted. His 
sleep was so deep that it was necessary to arouse him at last. This was 
done gently, and Foster, after rubbing his eyes dazedly for a moment, 
gave a deep groan, and sank back for an instant. He was deadly pale, 
and looked more ghastly in the dim light of his cell. The truth had 
rushed to his soul in an instant. He had been sleeping his last few hours 
on earth away, and he seemed in his horror already to feel the clammy 
touch of death around his heart. Rousing himself up, however, he got 
out of bed and made his toilet, with the occasional kindly assistance of 
the keepers. He had weakened terribly, and the deputies and keepers 
shook their heads and spoke in whispers. They feared it might be neces- 
sary to carry the wretched man to the scaffold. His breakfast was brought 
him, a light one, and he ate sparingly. His manner was excessively ner- 
vous, and his hand trembled as he brought the cup to his lips. 

FITTING THE ROPE. 

During this time the assistants without had been as noiselssly as possi- 
ble stretching the awnings — one above the scaffold itself, and the other 
pendent from the " bridge of sighs " across the yard. The object of this, 
it will be remembered, is to screen the execution from those who might 
endeavor to look on from the upper stories or roofs of buildings near to 
the Tombs. The running rope was passed over the pulley in the beam, 
the great weights poised in the air, and the cutting rope laid along the 
plank and fastened to the cleat. The mattress to deaden the sound of the 
falling weight was placed in its position. This work, it may here be 
said, was quickly and well done. Foster heard nothing of it, but its pro- 
gress was marking time upon his heart, and he would stop for an instant 
in his meal, and then again begin, as if to distract the poignancy of his 
thoughts. He ceased eating, and the tray was removed. He sat still and 
silent, with the horror creeping upon him. After a moment, the tramp, 
tramp, tramp of the police entering the prison yard is echoed from the 
dul 1 granite walls, and smites in upon the bitter thoughts of Foster* 
6 



82 LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 

Stirred by a sudden revulsion, he leans forward ; then, to the astonish- 
ment of the lookers-on, starts up as if he had been poisoned. The most 
delicate dish that ever chef concocted would have been like poison then. 
The sudden shock of the ominous tramp on the burning brain, acted on 
the stomach, and he vomited several times, until he fell backward with 
whitened cheeks, bluish, quivering lips, and glassy eyeballs, sunk far into 
their sockets. It was a horrible sight. A messenger was dispatched for 
Doctor Yandewater, who, at once penetrating the cause of the sudden sick- 
ness, was, nevertheless, astonished at the picture of agony and fear which 
Foster presented. A little warm coffee was administered, and by degrees 
the doomed man's face came back to a look of life. Supporting him on 
either side, he was walked up and down the corridor for a few minutes. 
Towards half-past eight, the venerable Dr. Tyng, who had taken such 
deep interest in the case, entered the prison, accompanied by the tall, 
spare young minister, the Rev. Mr. Walder. Foster now entered his cell 
with the clergymen, and remained listening to them for about half an hour; 
and speaking but little. 

At nine o'clock exactly, Sheriff Brennan and Under Sheriff Joel 0. 
Stevens entered the cell, and the clergymen came out and stood in silence 
on either side of the door. The process of pinioning the arms was sub- 
mitted to by Foster with all meekness, and the warrant was read. The 
face of the doomed man now resumed its ashy paleness ; the noose was 
rapidly adjusted, with the knot under the left ear; the black cap was 
placed loosely upon his head, and the awful toilet for the gallows was 
complete. Foster was dressed in a black frock coat, with a cardigan 
jacket beneath, and black pants. The solemn procession was then formed. 
First went the trembling and feeble condemned, supported on his left by 
Sheriff' Brennan, and on his right by Under Sheriff Stevens. The two 
clergymen followed, and then the Deputy Sheriffs, two and two. 

The wretched man's face in the sunlight looked yellowish white. He 
walked falteringly, as if the strong arms of the Sheriff and his Deputy 
were needed to help him on. His head dropped upon his breast, and the 
black ribbons upon the black cap fluttered a little in the breeze. On 
reaching the gibbet, the man on the verge of eternity was gently turned 
round so as to face the spectators. Lost to life as he was, he did not seem 
lost to shame, for he immediately raised his left hand to his face, and 
shaded it by rubbing his brows. 

The Rev. Dr. Tyng, in a clear voice, then commenced to read the Epis- 
copal service for the condemned. As the awful self-accusing words were 
recited, the doomed man bowed his head still more. At the end of two 
minutes, his weakness visibly increased. His limbs trembled as with 
palsy, and a faint but agonized groan escaped from his lips. His left 
hand still nervously rubbed over his eyes, and his body began to sway to 
and fro more painfully still. In gazing on his agony, the words of the 
service became a& intolerable monotone. The strong frame of the man 



LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 83 

broken with unutterable despair, as it swayed like a reed in the wind 7 
and trembled in every nerve, excluded all things else from the mind that 
could appreciate the unspeakable misery rolled into those fast-ebbing 
moments of his life. For five minutes the reading continued, and Foster's 
weakness had so increased that Sheriff Brennan whispered sharply to Dr. 
Tyng, " It's too long." The reverend gentleman indeed brought the ser- 
vice to a sudden close, and, turning quickly to Foster, grasped his right 
hand and hurried away, overcome with emotion, followed by his assist- 
ants. 

At eighteen minutes past nine, Foster's body fairly leaped into the air, 1 
The legs were jerked up to the body convulsively, and opening wide as 
they relaxed, the heels came together with a sharp click. The left hand 
was also thrown upward, but fell immediately by his side. In the first 
half minute following, there were five distinct nervous writhing motions 
of the trunk. After these, there was no sign of struggle. The cervical 
vertebrae were evidently dislocated by the shock. After hanging five 
minutes, the body was lowered, that the doctors might examine for signs 
of life. At twenty-seven minutes past nine, a faint trill was felt in the 
pulse. At thirty minutes past nine, pulsation ceased at the wrist. At 
thirty-three minutes past nine, the heart had ceased beating, and justice 
had exacted the full penalty for the murder of Avery D. Putnam. Such 
were the physicians' report, as they stood taking turns in listening at the 
breast of the thing of clay. 

The medical men summoned to assist Dr. Nealis, the prison physician, 
examined the pulse after the body had been suspended a few minutes, 
finally pronouncing life extinct in twenty-seven minutes. 

The remains were then lowered and placed in a rose wood coffin, by an 
undertaker sent by the relatives. Coroner Young held an inquest, as is 
usual in such cases, and the Sheriff impanelled a jury to certify that the 
sentence of the law had been duly carried into effect. Thus ended the 
life of William Foster, in atonement for his crime. The remains of Wil- 
liam Foster were quietly interred at Greenwood, on the forenoon of Satur- 
day, March 22. 

On this gallows died Bernard Friery, the murderer of Harry Lazarus ; 
Frank Ferris, the uxoricide ; Jerry O'Brien, who drove a fish knife through 
Ms mistress, the weapon piercing her heart and coming out at her breast ; 
George Wagner, who left an axe so deeply imbedded in his wife's skull, 
that it took great exertion to withdraw it ; Jack Reynolds, the idiot, whose 
death falsified his own prophesy that " hanging was played out in New 
York : " John Real, the assassin of policeman Smedick, and John Thomas, 
a negro, who slew a man of his own race. These died at the Tombs. But 
the Brooklyn authorities borrowed it and used it to execute Gonzales and 
Pellissier, the murderers of Otero, and Rogers, who clubbed the life out of 
policeman Donnelly. Buckhout, the Sleepy Hollow butcher, who shot 
his wife and friend on a Thanksgiving day, paid the penalty of his crime 



64 LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 

on this scaffold, at White Plains ; and it has been used up the river, at 
various times and places, as far as Newburg. 



EXECUTIONS IN NEW YORK EOR FORTY-ONE YEAB.S. 
A ROLL OP HORROR. 

The following is a list of executions in New York during che last forty- 
one years : — 

Daniel Ransom, January 7, 1832 ; Richard Jackson, November 10, 
835; Samuel Ilackley, January 14, 1837; Edward Coleman, January 
+2, 1838 ; Patrick Russell, December 8, 1841 ; James Eager, May 9, 1845 ; 
Charles Thomas, November 20, 1846 ; Matthew Wood, June 2, 1849 ; 
Benson and Douglas, July 25, 1851 ; Aaron Stokey, September 19, 1851 ; 
Otto Grunsig, February 27, 1852; Patrick Fitzgerald, April 19, 1852; 
William Saul and Nicholas Howlett, January 28, 1853 ; Joseph Clarke, 
February 11, 1853 ; Joseph L. Hoare, January 27, 1854; John Doisey, 
July 17, 1857 ; James Rodgers, November 12, 1858 ; James Stephens, 
February 3, 1860; John Crimmins, March 30, 1860; * Albert Hicks, 
July 30, 1860; Nathan Gordon, February 21, 1862; William Henry 
Hawkins, June 27, 1862; Bernard Friery, August 17, 1866; Frank 
Ferris, October 19, 1866 ; George Wagner, March 1, 1867 ; Jerry O'Brien, 
August 2, 1867; John Reynolds, April 8, 1870; John Real, August 5, 
1870; John Thomas, March 10, 1871; William Foster, March' 21, 1873. 

* Hicks was confined in the Tombs until the day of execution, when 
he was taken to Bedloe's Island and hanged. 

KEEPER ORR, THE VETERAN. 

Veteran Orr, in conversation with a reporter, in the dismal watches of 
the night preceding the execution, said: "My first recollection of this 
sort of thing is, when I was a little boy, seeing Rose Butler taken up 
Broadway in a cart, to be executed somewhere about Broadway and 
Twenty-third Street, I think. She had fired a house, and somebody was 
burned to death. That's as far back as I remember. Another execution 
I remember hearing about, was of a man — I forget his name — who kept 
a boarding house in Fletcher Street, I think. He killed a man and drag- 
ged his body through Governeur Street, and flung it into the river. Sus- 
picion pointed to him, and when they found the body, they took it into 
City Hall Square, and brought the suspected man up and made him touch 
it He fainted right away. They had some story that if the guilty man 
touched the corpse, blood would flow from the wounds again, or he would 
faint away, or something of that kind, and he did. Well, he confessed 
it, a'nd they hung him. But I must go and take a look around." 

And the old keeper walked quietly out into the jail yard. 



LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTEA. 85 

m 



HENBY WARD BEECHER'S SERMON. 



PLYMOUTH CHUBCH. 

GRAND END OF PUNISHMENT — UNIVERSAL CONVICTION OF IMPUNITY— "^ 
HANGING A STEP BACK TOWARDS BARBARISM — JUSTICE NOT A BEAR 
OR LION, BUT AN ANGEL. 

Mr. Beecher's sermon was one called forth by the events of the pre- 
ceding week. His text was Ecclesiastes viii. 11: — "Because sentence 
against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the 
sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." 

When crime breaks loose, said he. the natural impulse of every one is 
to blame the police and the laws. Every one cries out for severer legis- 
lation to intensify punishment. This matter of punishment cannot be 
settled in a moment ; the subject is not easy ; it taxes the most thoughtful 
men the world over. 

What society can do with its criminal members involves so much and 
runs so deep that security against criminality is the greatest study that 
can be given to any one. The grand end of punishment in human society 
is either the protection of society or the reformation of the culprit. These, 
after all, are one. Human society has no right of punishment for the sake 
of revenge. It is usually said that punishment is for the sake of protection. 
Society never protects itself so well as when it reforms. How, in what 
degree and with what severity is a matter which experience must decide. 
According to the condition in which society finds itself it has a right to 
punish. If the society is barbarous then the punishments may be bar- 
barous, but when society is carried up and elevated it has no longer a 
right to such punishments. The prevention of crime is the duty at one 
end as well as punishment at the other. The duty is correlative. No 
society has a right to punish when it does not prevent In attempting to 
prevent crime experience determines that it is not severity, but certainty 
and celerity, which prevents. It is the certainty of suffering in connection 
with wrong at once which deters ; all those laws which lie in the future 
are neglected ; the hope of escape mollifies. If the wrong and the penalty 
were not a band's breadth apart then there would be prevention. That 
crime is increasing there can be no doubt. What is the cause ? Emi- 
gration is one cause. We have to deal not only with our own criminals, 
but with those of other countries. The prevalence of crime in such a 
place as New York City is not to be taken as showing the average. As 
a place increases the temptations to wrong increase. The increase of pro- 



86 LIFE, TEIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WE FOSTER. 

perty is a great one ; men see truth less regarded, honesty less regarded, 
until the gradation from right to wrong seems small ; and drink, insanity 
is another. The use of liquor has been much abated in the regulated 
classes, but in the unregulated ones it has increased, and criminality 
springs largely from the unregulated classes. But, above all, is the al- 
most universal conviction of impunity. The bulk of criminals are young, 
in whom hope predominates over reflection. There are many things which 
,,-give this impunity — first, the cowardice of householders, who will not 
protect their premises. If men lie as white as their sheets when they 
hear a thief in the house, instead of protecting it, it gives impunity. No 
man is fit to keep house unless he can defend it. It is impunity founded 
on cowardice that makes it easy for thieves to enter houses. Now, while 
you curse the thief save a little for yourself. Justice is represented with 
bandaged eyes, and so the officers of justice think it their duty to have 
their eyes bandaged, and when men are arrested there are so many chances 
of escape by compromising with the police or property holders, by politi- 
cal influence, by pecuniary influence. I think there never was a step so 
backward towards barbarism as the election of judges by the people. 
Judges know that political influence keeps them in their places, and they 
are afraid of offending voters. There is a vast pecuniary influence brought 
to bear on our courts. A man without friends is sent up without delay, 
because it tells well to do it once in a while ; but if a man has friendg 
money reigns. It is held that every man has a right to defence. This is 
correct in a general sense, but the extent to which it has been carried has 
almost ruined our courts. If there be such latitude, if genius can pervert 
justice, then it is the patron of crime. 

What is the remedy for this ? education and religion and increase of 
legislation in the direction of cleanliness, health, distribution of population 
and the discarding of brutal punishments, such as hanging. I do not say 
the death penalty ought never to be used ; it is right in low stages of 
society, when they have no means of keeping prisoners, but in the higher 
grades I hold it is wrong. The existence of it renders conviction reluctant 
and uncertain. It does not produce the effect it once did. I think execu- 
tion does not deter, but incites crime. A man who has to spend forty 
years of his life in a penitentiary is a better example to society than a 
man who is hanged and forgotten. It is going back towards barbarism. 
As long as men are executed I think jurors will stretch low to let crimi- 
nals escape. There ought to be a more humane and Christian way of 
regarding criminals, not as brutes, not as having forfeited all rights. If a 
man had slain a hundred men he would have his rights, not his right of 
liberty; but no man can be divested of the right that he is the child of 
God; it does Dot follow that we are not to punish, only not as a beast, but 
as a man. When therefore our punishments are ameliorated our convic- 
tions will multiply. The pardoning power in the community has been a 
source of widesnread dissatisfaction. It is said that it gives impunity to 




EXECUTION OF WILLIAM POSTER— NEW YORK " TOMBS." 



LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 89 

crime. I hold that the pardoning power of the Governor is a safety valve. 
Could all those who are confined in prison be held in check without hope? 
But it does not seem wise that the pardoning power should reside in the 
Executive. It ought to be in a council, and there ought to be a certainty 
of punishment, milder but sure. Justice must not be represented by a 
bear or a lion, but by an angel. When punishment is lessened then 
criminality will lessen. 

There are one or two questions, said Mr. Beecher, which I should like 
to ask you. What have you done to prevent crime or to reform criminals? 
When it is known that alcoholic drinks are the cause of ninety per cent 
of the criminality, have you ever tried to stop the sale of it? Do you 
feel that you have a right to ride in the State as travellers ride in a rail- 
road car ? If that which our Master said is true, there is many and many 
a man who goes out of life whose chances in the next world are better 
than those of the ones who are left. God said to the Pharisees, " the publi- 
can and the harlot shall enter the kingdom of heaven before you." 

CHURCH OF OUR SAVIOUR. 

A' LOST SOUL — KIND WORDS ABOUT FOSTER — SERMON BY REV. J. M. 

PULLMAN. 

The Rev. J. M. Pullman preached on Sunday in Trenor's Lyric Hall, on 
* A Lost Soul." He took his text from the Lamentations iii. 31 : " The 
Lord will not cast off forever." He said he denied the theory that the 
'lost soul" was one on which the Lord would inflict all his infinite re- 
sources of torment. A great many people could not help being in a con- 
dition of degradation, but, although the attention of most churches was 
directed to low places of misery for unsaved souls, he would ask them to 
look to high places for such souls. He would seek them in those ranks 
of society where the conditions were favorable for a higher and better 
life. He had heard people speak about the soul of the poor unfortunate 
man that was lost last week. He did not think this was a lost souL 
When a man was lost to the higher law, he was found by the retributive 
laws of God. This very penalty was a means of restoration. The divine 
spark in the human soul could never be entirely extinguished. A soul 
exposed to the eternal fury of God, he maintained, this was a condition 
which no human soul was ever placed in. The phrase, u An endlessly 
lost soul," could not be found in the Bible; but they had assurances, on 
the contrary, that the Saviour had mercy and love for all human sin. A 
finite man could not commit an infinite offence. The Lord had never lost 
an atom of his creation, and he could not lose a human soul. He asked 
them to picture the loving, sympathetic soul, gazing from heaven at an- 
other soul suffering the endless torments of hell. God was just and pow- 
erful, and th^se attributes worked under His infinite love. He did not 
believe that any soul could maintain its defiant attitude against the divin# 
love. 



90 LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 



LYRIC HALL 

HOW TO LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR" — SERMON BY 
THE REV. O. B. FROTHINGHAM. 

Spring's fresh, bright face, and warm, welcoming smile, called out the 
lmrch-goers and fashionables in large numbers. At Lyric Hall, between 
Forty-first and Forty-second Streets, the attendance was large, as it always 
is. Mr. Frothingham's discourse was based upon the words of Christ, 
"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." It is related of Jesus (he 
began), that on one occasion, being accosted by a man, and asked the way 
to eternal life, he replied : rt Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all 
thy heart and soul." And, acting upon this principle, you will find the 
eternal life. To know how to love every man, is something very difficult 
to find out. It is the mystery of mysteries, the enigma of life. There is 
no question in theology that compares with it. If we look at this matter, 
we find there are three ways of testing love for a human being — love of 
soul, love of body, and love of qualities. The love of the soul is the res- 
cue of the soul from the judgment to come. It consists in making the 
connection with God strong; therefore all these churches and preachers. 
This love of soul is something which no one understands but a believer in 
the evangelical. This love of soul has no social meaning at all. It has 
nothing to do with want, or crime, or sin ; it has nothing to do with the 
problem of pauperism or reform. If there were no hereafter, it would 
have no significance. Leave out evangelical theology, with the scheme 
for the future, and this love of soul will be nothing. The love of soul 
being given up, the love of body claims attention. Whether we have a 
soul or not, it is incarnated. All sensation is physical. All pain is first 
of all physical. Hunger, heat, cold, vice, poverty and crime, make the 
body suffer. Love has regard to the body. It means a roof for the un- 
fortunate, fire for the cold, and food for the hungry. The love of man is 
the love of his body, and it consists in diminishing his misery. Pain is 
the ugly thing that all people hate. The New Testament says : " There 
shall be no more pain." Love means money, soup-houses, asylums, and 
places of refuge. This kind of love shows itself towards criminals, in try- 
ing to make their fate as easy as possible. We see it in the demand that 
all prisons shall be conducted upon kind principles. This dread of inflict- 
ing pain is at the bottom of the claims against capital punishment. 

Men would rather be imprisoned for life, than suffer the agony of death 
by the axe or halter. They would give up everything, rather than un- 
dergo the intense agony of those dreadful seconds. Can we pity wretched 
men and wome'n too much ? Why not dismiss them in a trance ? Is this 
love of body the love of man? The love of manhood and the love of 
qualities are the test of life. It is not the fiction of the soul, or the sensa- 
tions of the body, that makes the man ; it is quality. 



LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 91 

ST. GEORGE'S CHURCH. 

THE REV. DR. TYNG ON FOSTER — REPENTANCE MEANS SALVATION — THE 
REVILINGS OF THE WORLD NOT TO BE REGARDED BY CHRISTIAN SOULS. 

Many, no doubt, who attended Dr. Tyng's church were drawn thither 
by the idea that the reverend gentleman would touch upon the subject of 
Foster, with whose fate he has been so intimately connected during the 
past month or so. This was the reason why the large church was crowded 
in every part, and the name of the executed felon was on everybody's 
tongue who was there. On ascending the pulpit Dr. Tyng gave as his 
text a part of the eighth chapter of the Song of Solomon, beginning — 
"I raised thee up under the apple tree ; there thy mother brought thee up.'' 
He began by speaking of the mercies whieh the Almighty vouchsafed to 
those who cared to follow His ordainments, of the great love and care 
which was lavished upon His children^ and said all had been done by 
God to give each one a share of that salvation which was intended for all. 
He said that he had the full hope that the unfortunate man who had been 
cut off so suddenly during the past week had long before the terrible 
moment came realized the goodness and mercies of a lovable God. He 
had met his doom with resignation, and entirely in a Christian spirit 
Would that all those who died were as well prepared as that reviled, 
hunted down criminal. God had said that he would bear the burdens of 
his children, and this poor wretch had suffered more than the children of 
this world ordinarily suffer. What matter the spirit with which the world 
reviles at the Christian? He has a fortitude and a hope greater than 
mortals can upset. God alone was his judge, and what mattered it to him 
how the world judged him. Jesus was the stay and the strength of all 
those who were denied by this world, and the Saviour, who said there was 
more joy in heaven at the saving of one soul that was plucked from the 
burning than at the salvation of a hundred righteous ones, had taken that 
poor castaway soul into His bosom in that kingdom where the wicked 
•cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. Repentance and hope for 
a better life should animate us all at the last moment. 

When the reverend gentleman ended a sermon which was replete with 
Christian beauty the effect was deep and soul-felt on the congregation. 
The living illustration was so apt and so well put as to be extremely 
: mpressive. 

TALMAGE AT THE ACADEMY. 

JESUS CHRIST THE ONLY COMFORTER — THE VICTIMS OF SLANDER AND 
ABUSE — IS THE PREACHER REBUKING HIS CRITICS? — THE EMIGRATION 
FROM TIME INTO ETERNITY. 

Mr. Talmage preached to an immense congregation, as usual. Everj 
seat was occupied, and those who came late were provided with accom- 
modations in the orchestra. Mr. Post, the precentor, who had been absent 



92 LIFE, TKIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 

for a number of Sundays, in consequence of a severe cold, returned yes- 
terday, having almost fully recovered, and led the singing. 

Mr. Talmage preached from the text, " And His disciples went and told 
Jesus," being a statement of the action of the disciples after the beheading 
of John the Baptist by order of King Herod. The disciples were thrown 
into grief and dismay by this event, and their grief must find expression. 
Jesus could understand their grief, and He immediately soothed it. In 
the first place the preacher commended the behavior of these disciples to 
all those in the audience who were sinful and unpardoned. There came 
a time in almost every man's history when he felt from some source that 
he had an erring nature. The thought might not have such heft as to tell 
him ; it might be only like the flash in an evening cloud just after a very 
hot summer day. One man, to get rid of that impression, would stimulate 
himself with ardent spirits, another would seek secularities ; but sometimes 
a man could not get rid of this impression. The fact was that when a 
man found out that his eternity was poised upon a perfect uncertainty and 
that the next moment his foot may slip, he must do something violent to 
make himself forget where he stood or fly for refuge. Driven, perplexed 
and harassed as you have been by sin, " go and tell Jesus." " Oh," but a 
man said, " instead of curing my wound you want to make a wound of 
eonviction." Have you never known a surgeon to find a chronic disease, 
and then, with sharp caustic, burn it all out, and the health come again ? 
So the grace of God comes to the old sore of sin. It has long been rank- 
ling there, but by that grace it is burned out through these fires of con- 
viction, "the flesh coming again as the flesh of a little child." With the 
ten thousand unpardoned sins of your life, "go and tell Jesus." 

I commend the behavior of the disciples to all who are tempted. I 
have heard men in mid-life say they have never had temptations. If 
they have not, it is because they have never tried to resist, and have not 
tried to do right. A man hoppled and hand-cuffed, as long as he lies 
quietly, he does not test its power; but when he rises up, and with 
determination resolves to snap the hand-cuffs, or break the hopple, then he 
fi»ds the power of the iron. As long as we go down the current, we seem 
to get along smoothly ; but when we turn and head the other way, toward 
Christ and heaven, oh, how we have to lay to the oars ! It is all folly for 
one man to say he could not be tempted as another is. The temperament 
decides the style of temptation ; but sanguine or lymphatic, you will have 
temptation. What are you to do? Tell everybody of it? Ah, what a 
silly man you would be ! With all your temptations around about you, 
go as these disciples did, and tell Jesus. 

Again I commend the behavior of the disciples to all those who are 
abused and slandered and persecuted. When Herod put John to death, 
the disciples knew that their own heads were not safe. And do you know 
that every John has a Herod ? There are persons in life who do not wisb> 
you very well. Your misfortunes are honeycombs to them. Through 



LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 93 

their teeth they hiss at you, misinterpret your motives, and would be glad 
to see you upset. No man gets through life without a pummelling. Some 
slander comes for you horned, tusked and hoofed to gore you, and what 
are you to do? I tell you plainly, that all who serve Christ must suffer 
persecution. It is the worst sign in the world for you to be able to say, 
" I haven't an enemy in the world." A woe is pronounced in this Bible 
of the one of whom everybody speaks well. If you are at peace with all 
the world, and everybody likes you and approves your work, it is because 
you are an idler in the Lord's vineyard, and are not doing your duty. It 
was so in the times of George Whitefield and John Wesley, and what is 
true of the pulpit is true of the pew, and the street, and the shop, and the 
store. It is the worst sign in all the world, I tell you, if you are any of 
you at peace with all the world. The religion of Jesus Christ is war ! It is 
a challenge to "the world, the flesh, and the devil." But what are you to 
do when you are assaulted, and slandered, and abused ? Go out and hunt 
up the slanderer? Oh, no, silly one. While you are explaining away a 
falsehood in one place, fifty people will just have heard of it. I counsel 
you to another course. While you are to omit no opportunity of setting 
yourselves right, I want to tell you of One who had the hardest things 
said about Him, whose sobriety was disputed, who was persecuted as a 
babe, and spit upon as a man, and who was howled at after He was dead. 
I would have you go to Him. " Go and tell Jesus." And I remark 
again, I commend the behavior of the disciples to all those who may be 
bereaved or desolate by the loss of friends. Oh, how many here ! God 
has his own way of taking apart a family. We must get out of the way 
for coming generations. We must get off the stage that others may come 
on. This matter of emigration from time into eternity, is so vast an en- 
terprise we cannot understand it. Every hour we hear the clank of the 
sepulchral gate. The sod must be broken ; the ground must be ploughed 
for the resurrection harvest. Eternity must be peopled, and this emigra- 
tion from time into eternity keeps three-fourths of the families of the earth 
in desolation. The air is rent with farewells, and the black-tasselled ve 
hides of death rumble through every street. Oh, the grave is cruel I 
With teeth of stone it clutches for its prey. Between the closing gates of 
the sepulchre, our hearts are mangled and crushed. What are we to do ? 
There is no earthly solace. Has God turned us out on barren Commons 
to die ? No, no ! He has not. He comes with sympathy, and kindness, 
and love. He understands our grief. He is the only One that can fully 
sympathize. 



94 LIFE, TKIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 

CHURCH OF THE DISCIPLES. 

MAN'S AND GOD'S PUNISHMENTS — THE FEARFUL FATE OF FOSTER, AND 
ITS LESSONS — SERMON BY THE REV. GEORGE H. HEFWORTH. 

One of the largest congregations that have yet attended at the evening 
services of the Church of the Disciples, at Steinway Hall, was assembled 
on this occasion. One reason of this, aside from the personal popularity 
of Rev. George H. Hepworth, the pastor, was, no doubt, the previous an- 
nouncement that the subject of the discourse would be "Man's and God's 
Punishments," and the supposition that he would take up the case of 
Foster. In this respect he did not disappoint the congregation. He took 
for his text the following words of St. Paul: " Who will render to every 
man according to his deeds." These words signified, he began, that we 
were living in a world of law. They implied that we had a master ; that 
we are not to follow our own caprices, but yield to a supreme law. If we 
do well, then happiness will follow. If clouds gather, hope will remain. 
If we do ill, and give way to our appetites, at last we shall be ground to 
powder. Open rebellion against God was but the synonym of death. 
God was willing to make a covenant with us. If we would put His law 
into our lives, if we would be subject to Him, then our safety is sure, and 
there is nothing to fear in the great hereafter. If, on the other hand, we 
act basely, ambitiously, then misery and death will cover us with its pall 
hereafter. God gives us the compass to steer by. By following this, at 
last we will anchor in the harbor of safety. The trouble was, they were 
all impatient. The things of eternity and Christ are hidden. Instead of 
going by compass and chart, and the polar star, we go into this inlet ; we 
drift and we ramble, we play with temptation, and then complain at last 
that we are bruised and wounded. Pursuing this train of prefatory 
thought, at eloquent length he asked what restraints God had given us to 
keep us good and virtuous. He dwelt upon the power of His word, and* 
then pictured the power of conscience. ' We are our own jurors. He who 
follows an enlightened conscience, could not go astray. Another of God's 
gifts was love of family. The love a man bears for his wife, is safety for 
him. This love, and that for his children, press him forward in pursuit 
of the noble, of the good. Love of character, again, he urged, was a re- 
straint — one. of the energies of the soul to keep one from the paths of evil. 
After all these advantages, if a man goes wrong, he does it knowing the 
probable consequences. It was a melancholy thing to look upon the 
wreck of a man. If he were the only one to suffer, it would be bad 
enough; but in going down, he draws others down to misery. Behind 
the man you see the aged father. It is a secret that must not be whis- 
pered. You see the mother, her eyes dim with weeping, and heart torn, 
and nothing in the future but absolute hopelessness. You see the wife, 
her heart wrung, and no hope but in the grave. Worst of all, you see 
the children, who begin life with a stained name. 



LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 95 

All this follows, not in one instance, but in every instance when a stal- 
wart man goes down to ruin. He cannot go down alone ; he drags others 
down with him. Thus far he said he had spoken of the general law. 

He wished they would make a personal application of what he had 
spoken. If any are on the downward road, stop now. The Master also 
said "Halt." Let them listen to the next command, "Right about face." 
Dare to be men. Within a few days they had been made acquainted with 
a notable example of this law. The people had been deeply stirred. 
They hardly knew whether to sympathize or not. They hardly knew 
whether to be pitiless or pitiful. A man as well born as any present — ■ 
a. man of fair prospects — had come, within the past week, to an ignomi- 
nious end. What brought it about? Bad habits; such as he had been 
warning them against the past year and a quarter. He went into life, de- 
termined to have a good time, determined to give to his appetites and 
passion the utmost gratification. He entered into all kinds of dissipa- 
tion. He had a right to use this kind of spectacle, and paint therefrom 
a moral. Heed the lesson. A moral purpose they must love. Infi- 
delity in religion would end in tears and death. How often he had tried 
on that platform to point out the dangers besetting young men. The devil 
was everywhere. This spectacle to which he had reverted, had given 
rise to a new sensation. It showed that they had a whole man in office. 
He would have signed a thousand times the petition asking commutation, 
if he had thought it would have done any good. The result has shown 
that no bribe or friendship could change him. His sentiment was: "Let 
the Courts do their duty, and he would do his." He would say a few 
words of the present jury system. 

A business man could not get on a jury now-a-days. Juries come from 
the slums of the city. Men should be tried by their peers. Was this a 
spasm of justice, or had they entered on the business of justice? They 
had, in his view, hanged the least criminal one of the caged murderers 
now in the Tombs. Let them have enough of this thing. Let them have 
an abolition of the hangman's rope, which was only a relic of barbarism. 
Foster began with as good prospects as any present. He began with the 
glass ; he took to gaming ; he went on to deeper depths of degradation, 
till he became a murderer. Let all young men take warning by his ex 
ample. T»srn towards Jerusalem and towards God. 

ST. PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL. 

THE MUSIO — SERMON ON HUMILITY BY FATHER KEARNEY — THE EFFECTS 
OF PRIDE, AND THE BEAUTIES AND BENEFITS OF HUMILITY. 

The high mass at the Cathedral was well attended. The whole front of 
the church, that is, the part near the doors on Mott Street, was monopolized 
by Italians, who zealously counted their beads during service and after- 



96 LIFE, TRIAL, AND EXECUTION OF WM. FOSTER. 

wards as zealously prayed for pennies outside the doors. The music of 
the mass was very fine. Mercadante's mass in G minor was euLg, minus 
the "Gloria." At the offertory " Fac ut portem," from Rossini's "Stabat 
Mater," was effectively rendered. During the elevation Mr. Gustav Schmitz, 
the organist, performed an exquisite extempore, and at the conclusion of 
the mass he played one of his own grand marches. Father McNamee 
celebrated mass, and the sermon was preached by Father Kearney. 

THE SERMON. 

After reading the Gospel for the day the reverend gentleman proceeded 
to explain the lesson of humility it contained. The gist of his remarks 
will be found in the following : — 

In this holy season of Lent, when, in accordance with the mandates of 
our holy mother the Church, we are mortifying our sinful flesh, it is meet 
and just that we should also look to our spirit and curb and correct any 
little irregularities that we may find it to be possessed of. It is true we 
mortify the flesh in order to bring the spirit under control, and still there 
is a sentiment that all of us, whether rich or poor, entertain in a greater 
or a lesser degree. I have reference to our inherent pride — that sin which 
has descended to us from Adam and Eve. This is the commonest sin on 
the calendar, for the reason that it seems to be inseparable from oar flesh 
and blood. When viewed from afar its enormities are not as apparent as 
when we examine and closely scrutinize it. This sin of pride has been 
from time immemorial the curse and scourge of mankind. It was pride 
that caused Lucifer to fall from his high estate to the miserable degree of 
devil. It was pride, in their own knowledge, that caused Adam and Eve 
to eat the forbidden fruit and to be turned from Paradise. In the history 
of nations pride has worked worlds of wrong. The time was when a mere 
word as to the strength of two powers would cause them to war upon each 
other to settle the question and satisfy the empty worldly vanity. Among 
nations a better state of things is beginning to exist, but among the people 
the same caukerous sore still eats its way to the heart and soul. It may 
be said that our pride affects none but ourselves ; this is a pseudodox opin- 
ion, and the insidious poison it contains is only discovered by its effects. 
Accepting the premises that pride only affects ourselves, what then are its 
effects? Our catechism asks, a What doth it profit a man if he gain the 
whole world and lose his own soul? " The answer is obvious to the most 
anth eological among you, and still you sometimes forget that every man's 
duty is to save his immortal soul, which God has given in his charge. 



THE END. 



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